Campus Life News Archives - Page 20 of 29

International Law Society highlights hot topics and recognizes outstanding members

Panelists (L-R): Professor Royal Gardner, Professor Luz Nagle, Professor Jason Palmer and alumnus Ahmad Yakzan.

By Kai Su

About 40 students, professors, and members of the community gathered on Stetson’s Gulfport campus on Monday night, April 17, for an award recognition ceremony for the International Law Society Spirit Awards and panel discussion on “Hot Topics in International Law.” The program in the Great Hall was hosted by the International Law Society and International Programs Office at Stetson law school.

The panel was comprised of professors Royal Gardner, Luz Nagle, Jason Palmer and Stetson graduate Ahmad Yakzan. The panelists discussed a range of current issues affecting international law, including global climate change, human trafficking, international tribunals, and immigration law under the new administration.

“I have been in immigration court more in the last three months than in the last four years,” said Yakzan, who earned his B.A. in 2003, M.B.A. in 2005, J.D. in 2008 and his LL.M. in 2009 from Stetson University.

Following the panel, four recipients were honored with awards recognizing their contributions to Stetson’s international community: Javier Ojeda Chenard LL.M. ’15; Stetson Law International Programs Manager Velaine Paryzek; Robert Eckard LL.M. ’03, J.D. ’98; and Professor Nagle.

The program concluded with hors d’oeuvres and drinks and mingling among the guests. Natalia C. Reyna-Pimiento, the outgoing president of the International Law Society, created the concept for the program and said she hopes it will become an annual event for the organization.

(L-R): Natalia C. Reyna-Pimiento with Professor Luz Nagle.

(L-R): Joshua Miller, Natalia C. Reyna-Pimiento, and Robert Eckard.

(L-R): Tatiana Henao, Natalia C. Reyna-Pimiento and Velaine Paryzek.

(L-R): Natalia C. Reyna-Pimiento with alumnus Javier Ojeda Chenard.

Stetson wins Florida Bar Law Student Professionalism YouTube contest for the third year in a row

Stetson's parody of Law & Order won the Florida Bar contest. — Stetson’s parody of Law & Order won the Florida Bar contest. View the Video.

Stetson University College of Law has won the Florida Bar Law Student Professionalism YouTube contest for the third year in a row. The contest was designed to promote professionalism among law students.

Student Shaheen Nouri wrote and acted in this year’s video, “Law & Order: Ethical Victims Unit,” along with students Eva Seif, Christian Anderson, Katie Holland, Natalie Yello, and Colby Connell, with a special appearance by City of Gulfport Police Officer Marshall. The video was filmed and edited by Stetson law school’s manager of video production Stan Arthur.

Law students and student organizations across the state are encouraged by the Florida Bar to participate in producing an educational video skit that addresses expectations of legal professionalism in Florida. The videos are posted on the Florida Bar Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism website and may be used in continuing legal education programs for Florida Bar members.

The Florida Bar Center for Professionalism and Standing Committee on Professionalism selects the contest winners, who receive their award in June during the Florida Bar’s Annual Convention in Boca Raton.

Journal of International Aging Law & Policy holds first alumni mixer

(L-R): alumni Nicole Bell J.D. '16, Jessica Close J.D. '18, Korey Henson J.D. '09, Yugma Desai J.D. '18, Chelsea Ejankowski J.D. '18, Professor Roberta Flowers, Journal Editor-in-Chief Natalie Yello, Professor Lance Long, Journal Senior Editor Alyssa Aquaviva, Olivia Mejido J.D. '18, Stephanie Boussias J.D. '18, Cassidy Peterson J.D. '18, and Executive Editor Daniel Brown. Not pictured are associate editors Caleb Lopez J.D. '18 and Adriana Choi J.D. '18. Photo courtesy Darlene Krizen. — (L-R): alumni Nicole Bell J.D. ’16, Jessica Close J.D. ’18, Korey Henson J.D. ’09, Yugma Desai J.D. ’18, Chelsea Ejankowski J.D. ’18, Professor Roberta Flowers, Journal editor-in-chief Natalie Yello, Professor Lance Long, Journal senior editor Alyssa Aquaviva, Olivia Mejido J.D. ’18, Stephanie Boussias J.D. ’18, Cassidy Peterson J.D. ’18, and executive editor Daniel Brown. Not pictured are associate editors Caleb Lopez J.D. ’18 and Adriana Choi J.D. ’18. Photo courtesy Darlene Krizen.

On April 5, the Journal of International Aging Law & Policy held its first alumni mixer with local alumni of the Journal joining new and returning student editors for an evening of networking in the Mann Lounge.

The Stetson Journal of International Aging Law & Policy was established in 2005 to examine international perspectives and policies affecting the elderly. The current editorial board is working on publishing its 10th volume.

Student Jessica Close will become editor-in-chief of the Journal when Natalie Yello graduates in May.

Student organizations sponsor Earth Day Celebration on the Gulfport campus

Professors Gardner, Long and friends rocked the Plaza Mayor Courtyard for Earth Day on Stetson's Gulfport campus. — Professors Gardner, Long and friends rocked the Plaza Mayor Courtyard for Earth Day on Stetson’s Gulfport campus.

Stetson’s student Environmental Law Society, Student Animal Legal Defense Fund, Food Law Society, and International Law Society sponsored an Earth Day Celebration in the Plaza Mayor courtyard on the Gulfport campus on April 11.

Professor Ellen Podgor brought therapy dog Hans.

The event featured free plant giveaways, t-shirt screenings by the Center for Biological Diversity, environmental trivia, a doggie kissing booth, bicycle repairs by South Pinellas Bicycle, and a musical performance by Stetson law professors Royal Gardner and Lance Long, Environmental Law Society president Miles Archabal and friends.

Representatives from Keep Pinellas Beautiful, Ocean Conservancy, Hillsborough County EPC and local animal shelters also participated in the event. Professor Ellen Podgor brought her therapy dog Hans to the event for a doggie kissing booth.

An outdoor movie is scheduled in the courtyard after sunset.

Crossing the Finish Line: part-time law student inspires fellow students to volunteer

Daniel Kuzma (third from right) gathered a team of students from the part-time class and Associate Dean Laura Zuppo for a marathon run for charity. — Daniel Kuzma (third from right) gathered a team of students from the part-time class and Assistant Dean Laura Zuppo (third from left) for a 5k run for St. Jude’s on March 4.

Part-time Stetson law student Daniel Kuzma carves out extra time to inspire fellow students to volunteer to help raise money for charity. The busy father of two started his first year in the part-time law program this year at Stetson, and organized a 5k fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in March that raised close to $6,000. A total of 150 people participated in the 5k that Kuzma organized on a warm Saturday in March, among them 11 students in Stetson’s part-time class, Stetson Law Assistant Dean Laura Zuppo, and Kuzma’s precocious youngest son Kristopher. Runners’ ages ranged from a one-year-old in a stroller to a 79-year-old, Kuzma shared.

“People often ask me if my kids have cancer,” said Kuzma, whose two sons Kristopher and Danny often join him on 5k runs. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a parent with sick kids. That’s why I run for St. Jude’s.”

Kuzma with Christopher (left) and Danny (right). Photo courtesy Daniel Kuzma. — Kuzma with Kristopher (left) and Danny (right). Photo courtesy Daniel Kuzma.

Kuzma said he is constantly inspired to cross the finish line by the people he has met along the way. Kuzma described meeting a hospitalized child last year before the Memphis Marathon who was determined to finish the race. She walked every day for 26 days until she finished the marathon.

When Kuzma initially toured Stetson law school’s sunny Mediterranean campus, he had not yet finished college. He promised Assistant Dean Zuppo after his tour of the law school that he would be back in four years, a promise he kept. When Kuzma told Zuppo about the 5k he was organizing with the part-time class, he said she jumped at the chance to participate.

“Having support and encouragement at the finish line is so important,” Kuzma explained, who remarked that he was impressed by the members of the Stetson community who came out to show support for the 5k in March.

“We’re not just raising money. We’re inspiring people who didn’t even know they could run a 5K,” Kuzma said.

The 41-year-old started running for charity to teach his sons the importance of giving back. Kuzma has raised more than $20,000 for St. Jude in just three years. He ran his first half-marathon in Nashville five years ago, with plans this year to run a marathon in Nashville on April 29 and in Memphis on Dec. 3.

As an undergraduate at St. Petersburg College, Kuzma pitched the idea of a 5K for charity. Today, the Clearwater mayor, Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, LabCorp, Dolman Law Group, U.S. Air Force, Orangetheory Fitness, Fit2Run and Wawa show support at the 5k.

Kuzma said he wanted to use his volunteer work to show his children the importance of being an advocate, a responsibility he takes seriously.

“I wanted to be a voice for people who can’t put a sentence together,” said Kuzma. “If we have an ability or a skill set, we have to do more.”

What is animal law? Panel presents on career options in the practice area

(L-R): Stephen Wells, Elise Bennett, Kimberly Rubino, Annie Jed, Debbie Brown, and Dan Yuter. — (L-R): Stephen Wells, Elise Bennett, Student Animal Legal Defense Fund president Kimberly Rubino, SALDF vice president Annie Jed, Debbie Brown and Dan Yuter.

The Student Animal Legal Defense Fund sponsored a panel on Careers in Animal Law on March 31. Panelists the discussed their experience, careers, and advice for students who wish to use their law degree to help animals.

Center for Biological Diversity attorney Elise Bennett J.D. ’13, Lowry Park Zoo in-house counsel Debbie Brown J.D. ’87, Animal Legal Defense Fund executive director Stephen Wells, and animal abuse prosecutor Dan Yuter J.D. ’02 presented on a range of careers available in the area of elder law.

Student Animal Legal Defense Fund President Kimberly Rubino said she was inspired to organize the panel to help illustrate the many facets of animal law, a relatively new area of law.

“Every time I am asked what type of law I would like to practice, and I say animal law, I get the same confused stare because most people don’t realize animal law is a practice area,” said Rubino. “I wanted to show students and members of the public how a law degree can be used to help animals, and I thought the best way to do that was to show how helping animals can intersect with so many different areas of law. If more people dedicated even a small amount of their time to helping animals, or learning about the different ways to help, it would significantly change the lives of so many animals who need people to look out for them. “

Travis H.D. Lewin to receive Lifetime Achievement Award in Advocacy from Stetson

Syracuse University Professor of Law Emeritus Travis H.D. Lewin will be honored with the Stetson University College of Law Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching Advocacy in May. The award will be presented during Stetson’s Educating Advocates Teaching Advocacy Skills Conference May 22-24 in Gulfport, Florida.

Professor of Law Emeritus Travis H.D. Lewin. Photo courtesy Syracuse Law.

Professor Lewin led trial competition teams for several years as advisor and coach, and serves as a judge in trial competitions at Syracuse College of Law.

“In every law school’s history there is a person everyone looks to as the defining presence for the growth and development of the school’s trial advocacy program,” said Professor Charles H. Rose III, director of Stetson’s Center for Excellence in Advocacy. “The work Professor Lewin has done exemplifies all that is best in the teaching of trial advocacy.”

Stetson’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Advocacy recognizes people who have fundamentally changed the way in which the world approaches the teaching of advocacy.

This year’s Educating Advocates Teaching Advocacy Skills Conference focuses on the importance of modeling, mentoring, and coaching across all advocacy teaching modalities.

For more information about the conference, or to register, visit https://www.stetson.edu/law/conferences/eats/.

Gujarat National Law University in India wins the International Environmental Moot Court Competition at Stetson

The winning team, from Gujarat National Law University in India. — Stetson Professor Royal Gardner, director of the Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy, with the winning team from Gujarat National Law University in India.

A team of students from the Gujarat National Law University in Gandhinagar, India, won the International Environmental Moot Court Competition, now in its 21st year, on April 1 at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Florida.

For more than 20 years, students from around the world have competed in Stetson’s IEMCC for a chance to prove themselves as the best environmental advocates on the planet. The issue students addressed at this year’s competition involved climate geoengineering and its impact on oceans.

The runner-up was a team from the University of the Philippines College of Law, a law school which has advanced to the championship round of the IEMCC competition for three consecutive years.

The top teams from regional competitions in Africa, East Asia, Eastern and Central Europe, Ireland, India, Latin America, North America and Southeast Asia were invited to the IEMCC international finals at Stetson. Seventeen teams from eight different countries presented oral arguments to an expert panel of judges.

Students from the Cagayan State University College of Law in the Philippines won the Spirit of Stetson Award. The team from Pepperdine University School of Law won Best Memorial, with Symbiosis Law School in Noida, India, winning the second-best memorial.

Manya Oberoi of Gujarat National Law University in Gandhinagar, India, was named Best Oralist in the Final Round. Ma. Patricia S. Valena from the University of the Philippines College of Law won the Best Oralist Award in the Preliminary Rounds.

Final round judges were Dr. Wil Burns, emeritus editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy and founding co-executive director of American University’s Forum for Climate Geoengineering Assessment; Nancy Daves, senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation who serves on the boards of the Stetson University School of Arts and Sciences and Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience; and Judge Anthony Lucky, member of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea since 2003 who serves as president of the Fisheries Disputes Chamber.

Stetson Law dean joins more than 160 law deans signing letter in support of legal aid

On March 23, Stetson University College of Law Dean Christopher M. Pietruszkiewicz joined more than 160 other deans from public and private law schools across the country in signing a letter in support of continuing funding for the Legal Services Corporation.

“What brings us together today is a shared conviction that the loss of LSC funds would devastate efforts to provide access to essential legal services in our communities,” the letter states. Read the letter here: Letter to Congress in Support of Legal Aid (PDF)

The publicly-funded LSC program is the largest source of support for civil legal aid organizations around the country, with more than a million low-income Americans depending on these organizations for access to legal services.

“At Stetson, we know that one of our core values is to provide access to justice,” said Dean Pietruszkiewicz.

More than 30 years ago, longtime Stetson adjunct law professor and Stetson Hall of Fame inductee Wm. Reece Smith Jr., as then-president of the American Bar Association, encouraged lawyers and former ABA presidents to send a letter to Congress in support of continuing public funding for the Legal Services Corporation, which was in danger of losing public funding.

“Stetson’s tradition of public service began decades ago, a tradition which we continue today,” said Dean Pietruszkiewicz.

Stetson started the first Public Defender Clinic in the state. Last year, Stetson students contributed more than 30,000 hours of pro bono service and participated in 30 clinics and externships. Stetson provided students with an opportunity to participate in more than 400 community volunteer opportunities.

In January, several Stetson Law alumnae were honored at the Supreme Court of Florida by the Florida Bar for their work on behalf of poor and indigent clients.

In February, Stetson’s Veterans Law Institute celebrated the launch of a new medical-legal partnership with the Bay Pines Veterans Administration Healthcare System, Bay Area Legal Services and Gulfcoast Legal Services to help qualifying low-income veterans in the area gain greater access to free civil legal services veterans.

Child Advocates of Stetson Law brings crowd to campus for screening of film, Foster Shock

Student Taylor Greenberg is an advocate for children.

By Brielle Tucker

The Child Advocates of Stetson Law, a newly formed student organization launched by Taylor Greenberg, drew a crowd of close to 200 to the Gulfport campus for the screening of Foster Shock on March 29. The documentary produced and directed by Mari Frankel highlights the problems with Florida’s privatized child welfare system.

After the screening, a panel of former foster youth talked about their experiences living in group home foster care in Pinellas County. Judge Patrice Moore of the sixth circuit moderated the panel.

Foster Shock, which has been screened a various film festivals around the state, features children and young adults who discuss their experiences in the foster care system. The film highlights the changes that occurred when Florida’s child welfare system was privatized, leaving many children in danger of being further abused and neglected while in foster care.

“The purpose of this event was to ignite a community conversation and inspire change in the foster care system,” said Greenberg, student president and founder of Child Advocates of Stetson Law. “Whether you are a law student, a community member, or working in the child welfare field, there are so many ways to get involved with youth who desperately need support. Just one person can change the life of a child.”

CASL’s event was well attended by guests including child advocates, foster children, and several community organizations including the Guardian ad Litem program, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Eckerd Kids, and Heart Gallery. CASL also sponsored a hygiene drive where hundreds of full-sized hygiene products were donated and collected for teens living in group homes.

For more information on Foster Shock, or to see a list of future screenings, visit http://fostershock.com/.

For more information on getting involved with Child Advocates of Stetson Law or to join the CASL mailing list, please email Taylor Greenberg at [email protected]

Working in Big Law: Stetson’s Career Development Office hosts workshop

Stetson University College of Law’s Career Development Office hosted professionals who lead summer associate recruiting from three large law firms on March 23 who volunteered their time to talk to first year Stetson law students.

Career Development hosted a workshop with big law firms for students. Photo by Brielle Tucker. — Career Development hosted a workshop with attorney recruiters from large law firms for students. Photo by Brielle Tucker.

(L-R): . Photo by Brielle Tucker. — (L-R): Eric Page and student Michelle Moretz. Photo by Brielle Tucker.

The panelists, Kaye Daugherty of Rumberger Kirk & Caldwell, Eric Page J.D. ’04 of Shutts & Bowen LLP, and Linda Vandercook of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick LLP, joined Stetson Law Associate Director of Career Development Korey Henson to talk with students about what they need to know and what they can do to prepare to maximize their competitiveness for careers in large firms.

Stetson Law is home to an On Campus Recruiting program that brings many of Florida’s largest and most prestigious law firms to campus to recruit and hire summer associate talent each year.

Does corporate money intersect with politics? Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream presents at Stetson Law Review Symposium

Stetson University College of Law hosted a daylong Stetson Law Review Symposium, “Can Corporations Be Good Citizens? How Corporate Law, Litigation, Lobbying and Money in Politics Intersect,” on March 24 in Gulfport, Florida.

The keynote was presented by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Cohen, who founded the non-profit Stamp Stampede to build a movement to get big money out of politics, made a lively presentation on the humble beginnings of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and discussed the impact of corporate money in politics.

“There’s going to be a ballot initiative in 2018, in favor of an amendment to the constitution to make it so that corporations cannot contribute millions and millions of dollars to politicians in a system which is essentially legalized bribery,” said Cohen.

Symposium presentations included:

Journalist Kathy Kiely formerly of Bill Moyers & co. moderated a discussion about the legal and constitutional role of corporations in democracy;

Keesha Gaskins-Nathan of the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation moderated a panel on what empirical studies show about corporations and the political system;

Journalist Lee Fang of the Intercept moderated a panel on potential reforms.