Juan Soto – University of Baltimore School of Law Magazine

‘Lawyers as Leaders’ Series Gathers Alumni for Professional Growth

Posted on September 5, 2024September 5, 2024 by Juan Soto in Baltimore Briefs 2024

In an effort to draw on the leadership strengths of our law alumni and share that wisdom and experience with emerging leaders in our alumni community, UBalt Law has created an exciting new lunch-and-learn series, Lawyers as Leaders.

This three-part series, with panels in September, October and November, will cover essential leadership topics such as authentic leadership style, change management, and building a positive and inclusive culture. The series is an initiative launched by Associate Dean for Administration Joy Gaslevic, J.D. ’99.

The first of the three sessions, on Friday, Sept. 13, focuses on Authentic Leadership style. In the demanding legal profession, staying true to who you are is important. Effective leaders show up authentically and inspire others to do their best work.

This session is a call to action for lawyers to lead with vulnerability and authenticity. We’ll explore the power of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and empathy – the core ingredients of an authentic leadership style that builds trust, inspires teams, improves communication and problem solving, and drives meaningful change.

When we have the courage to embrace our imperfections and lead from a place of authenticity, we unlock a wellspring of potential for ourselves and those we lead.

Attendees will hear from four UBalt Law alumni: Baltimore City Solicitor Ebony Thompson, JD ’13; Kramon & Graham principal David Shuster, JD ’94; former Children’s Defense Fund executive Rexanah Wyse Morrissette, JD ’13; and panel moderator, Johns Hopkins Dean Jill Green, JD ’94.

The second session, on Friday, Oct. 11, focuses on Leading Through Change. We know that change is inevitable, and lawyers often navigate complex transitions. This session will equip legal professionals with strategies for leading teams through change while minimizing disruption. We will discuss change management best practices and how to lead with confidence during times of uncertainty.

Hear from four UBalt Law alumni: GM Cruise public policy chief Henry Greenidge, J.D. ’10; retired CareFirst BCBS general counsel Meryl Burgin, J.D. ’87; Kerry Neal, J.D. ’06, associate commissioner, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; and moderator Laurie Lyte, J.D. ’92, principal, Lytehouse Solutions.

The third session, on Friday, Nov. 15, is on Building a Positive Culture. Climate and culture within an organization matter. Everyone in an organization is responsible for contributing to a positive climate and culture, but leaders are ultimately responsible for assessing, developing and maintaining both.

By establishing and maintaining a positive climate and culture, leaders can increase motivation, job satisfaction, morale, team cohesion, initiative and trust, and ultimately improve team dynamics and overall individual and team performance and results.

Hear from four experts: Imoh Akpan, J.D. ’06, a partner at Goldberg Segalla; retired judge Hon. Barbara Baer Waxman, J.D. ’80; Traci Mundy Jenkins, director of career development at Venable; and moderator Laurie Lyte, J.D. ’92, principal, Lytehouse Solutions.

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UBalt Law Welcomes Four New Faculty

Posted on September 4, 2024September 6, 2024 by Juan Soto in Baltimore Briefs 2024

Four new faculty members joined UBalt Law this academic year. One is a clinical teaching fellow, and three are focused on a newly revamped Introduction to Lawyering Skills curriculum with smaller class sizes and an increased emphasis on writing and legal analysis.

Danielle Burs joined the faculty as a clinical teaching fellow in the Community Development Clinic. Previously, she held a variety of positions at the intersection of law, public policy, and community advocacy. Burs has focused on transactional, legislative, and regulatory work in her career, while also representing clients in administrative and civil cases. Her professional experience includes positions at nonprofit organizations, government offices, and private practice. Burs also maintains roles on volunteer boards focused on community development.

Burs received a Bachelor of Arts in Government Relations and English from Clark University in Worcester, Mass., and a Juris Doctor from The American University Washington College of Law.

Afton Cavanaugh joined the law school as an assistant professor. Prior to joining the faculty, he was a service professor of law and assistant dean at St. Mary’s University School of Law, where he taught a wide range of courses, including Legal Communications, Analysis, and Professionalism; Experiential Legal Analysis; Estate Planning; and Bar Prep for Credit.

At UBalt Law, Cavanaugh teaches Introduction to Lawyering Skills (ILS) and Trusts and Estates. Prior to his academic career, Cavanaugh practiced law as co-founder and managing member of Cavanaugh Quintanilla, PLLC in Austin, Tex., where he specialized in real estate, business law, and wills and estates.

Throughout his career, Cavanaugh has displayed a commitment to student success, from the development of courses that implement innovative active learning techniques, to research that focuses on student success both inside and outside of the classroom. He has presented at numerous conferences on topics such as legal education innovation, diversity in law schools, and the use of technology in legal writing instruction. His scholarship focuses on inheritance rights, tax law, and legal education reform. His work has been published in journals such as the UMKC Law Review, Hofstra Law Review, and The Scholar.

He earned a B.A. from St. Edwards University and a J.D. from St. Mary’s University School of Law.

Richard Luedeman teaches Introduction to Lawyering Skills (ILS) and Federal Civil Rights Claims. Previously, at the University of Connecticut School of Law, Luedeman taught lawyering courses and Advanced Civil Procedure. He is very active in academic service, and currently serves on the programming committee of the AALS Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues. He is also a member of the legal writing community, following pedagogical developments in the field and serving on the awards committee for the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research.

In addition to his scholarly work and academic service, Luedeman has taken on several pro bono projects while in academia, including successfully appealing the dismissal of a client’s civil rights claims in federal court.

Prior to teaching, Luedeman was a practitioner specializing in complex and appellate litigation. Before private practice, he clerked for judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

He received an A.B. in government from Harvard University and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Yale Law Journal editorial board and the New Haven Legal Assistance housing clinic.

Jessica Lynn Wherry joined the faculty as an associate professor teaching legal analysis and writing to first-year students, and upper-level writing in veterans law. Wherry began her teaching career as associate professor of legal research and writing, associate director of the legal research and writing program, and co-director of the scholarly writing program at The George Washington University Law School. Previously, she taught legal research and writing courses at Georgetown University Law Center. Prior to her career in education, she served as assistant counsel in the U.S. Department of the Navy’s Office of the General Counsel and as a cryptologic technician in the U.S. Navy.

Wherry’s scholarly interests are veterans and military law, legal communication and narrative, and the intersection of the two. She assists veterans with disability compensation claims and discharge upgrades through her pro bono work with the Homeless Persons Representation Project and The Veterans Consortium. Wherry also serves as reporter to the Standing Committee on Maryland Pattern Jury Instructions-Civil and as co-editor-in-chief to Legal Communication & Rhetoric: JALWD, the peer-reviewed flagship journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors.

She is also a board member of the National Law School Veterans Clinic Consortium and serves as the editor to the Social Science Research Network’s Veterans & Military Law & Policy eJournal. She earned her B.A. from Lawrence University, an M.S.Sc. from Syracuse University, and her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School.

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Entrepreneur Tre Lundy Works at the Intersection of Law and Technology

Posted on September 4, 2024September 4, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features 2024

By Adam Stone

Before attending UBalt Law, Tre Lundy J.D. ’21, worked in several roles at Under Armour.

“I found that the legal department really had a hand in every part of the operation,” he says. At the same time, “I was working with technology a lot, using it to automate my own role or to streamline processes in the supply chain.”

Since graduating from law school, he’s launched a career in exactly that space: At the intersection of law and technology.

Lundy always planned to use his legal training in support of entrepreneurial efforts. After graduation, he launched the legal outsourcing firm Task Masters, then shut that down in 2022 when he founded PaySync, a productivity tool for bankruptcy attorneys.

“When an individual files for bankruptcy, they have to submit six months of pay stubs. The attorney usually puts them into a spreadsheet, manually, so that they can analyze the data,” he says. “PaySync uploads those pay stubs, automates the data extraction, and then produces reports for attorneys. We take an hours-long process down to 10 or 15 minutes.”

Lundy isn’t just the legal brains behind the operation. He wrote the code himself, and built the app with technical help from friends he’d met as a UMBC undergraduate.

“Once I finished law school, while I was doing legal outsourcing and building websites for others, I would spend a few hours every night teaching myself how to code, learning how to build applications,” he says.

“My friends told me the things I’d have to look out for as I built the code: They understood the technical part, but they didn’t know bankruptcy law,” Lundy says. “So I had to leverage their knowledge, and at the same time there was a lot that I had to figure out on my own.”

A practical education

This hands-on, practical approach isn’t new for Lundy. While at UBalt, he was already putting his legal training to work in support of others, through the school’s Community Development Clinic.

Valarie Davis was a client of his at the clinic. During the pandemic, she had launched a non-profit organization to train women, particularly African American women, to do public-health outreach in the Black community.

“I wanted to expand to fee-based services, and to do that I needed to figure out how best to protect people’s data, particularly around health,” she says. “Tre helped me to address specific questions about computer systems, questions about the law, and about privacy.”

As director of the clinic, Prof. Jaime Lee – now associate dean for experiential education — was impressed by what she saw. “This is an excellent example of how the law clinics train UBalt Law students to develop and apply their tremendous talents to serve clients and make an impact on the world at large,” she says. “Tre was a stellar student attorney and is on the cutting edge of our profession, and I’m so proud that he is an alum of our law school.”

A solid start

The clinic experience helped Lundy chart his next steps. “I learned what some of the options were for non-traditional attorneys — and that is what I consider myself,” he says. “This gave me an understanding of what problems businesses face, and what role a legal professional could have in helping to solve those problems.”

That understanding helped bring PaySync to life, and now he’s looking to build on that momentum. “We’d really like to continue expanding our national footprint,” he says.

At the same time, he’s looking to grow the audience beyond bankruptcy attorneys, perhaps offering a similar service to certified public accountants. “From the feedback we’ve gotten, that is the next target client with the highest utility for what the app does,” he says.

If PaySync can expand its user base as planned, “then hopefully in three to five years we will have been acquired,” he says. And then? “After that, we’ll see. I’ll have to dive more into what the problems are, before I figure out how I can provide a solution.”

Whatever he does next, it likely will combine his passion for the law, his grasp of technology, and his interests in both owning a business and supporting others on their entrepreneurial journeys.

For law students thinking they might want to apply their legal skills in non-traditional directions, Lundy has words of encouragement.

“Don’t be intimidated by feeling as if you don’t have enough experience or enough knowledge of a subject,” he says. “It is all about figuring things out on the fly, and that is what lawyers are great at. The greatest skill any lawyer can have is our ability to figure out new things.”

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

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UBalt Law Launches Stronger Writing Curriculum to Emphasize Legal Analysis

Posted on September 4, 2024September 4, 2024 by Juan Soto in Baltimore Briefs 2024

By Adam Stone

Good writing doesn’t come naturally to everyone. “To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement,” according to Mark Twain. Yet strong writing is a fundamental skill in the legal profession.

With that in mind, UBalt Law is upgrading its writing curriculum, starting this fall.

“To be a good lawyer, you need to be able to do solid written legal analysis. That’s just fundamental, no matter what kind of law you do,” says Prof. Nancy Modesitt, associate dean of legal analysis and writing.

In addition, the bar exam already demands writing that demonstrate analysis, and it will likely be asking for more. “The Next-Gen bar exam is expected to be even heavier on these legal analysis skills,” Modesitt says. “Students need to be able to do legal analysis effectively, and the more you practice that, the better you’re going to be at it.”

Legal analysis includes “rule-based reasoning, presenting arguments in a coherent fashion, backed by authority,” says Prof. Colin Starger, associate dean for academic affairs. Based on current research, “we now understand with greater clarity that legal analysis is absolutely vital to success in law school, success on the bar exam, and success as a lawyer.”

The best way for students to gain that skill “is through writing and revision, working closely with experts,” he says. With that in mind, UBalt Law has made a number of changes to the writing curriculum.

The new approach

Students will see a big change in how the first-year legal writing class unfolds. Going forward, class size will be pared back from 25 to approximately 15 students. With smaller classes, students will receive more hands-on guidance.

“It’s easier to give better feedback to the students in a smaller class,” Modesitt says. “Reducing the class size allows us to give more time and attention to those students, and it gives the students a chance to get more meaningful feedback.”

In the upper-level curriculum, there will be a new requirement that students produce at least two significant pieces of written legal analysis and receive substantial feedback on that work. It will take several years to fully implement the change, Modesitt says, as the enhanced writing component will need to be woven into a variety of courses.

“We want our existing faculty members to teach written legal analysis in the context in which they’re most comfortable. So we’re taking upper-level elective classes, reducing the class size, and adding the writing component to the requirements for those classes,” she says. “Environmental law is one of the classes that has been proposed as an early adopter of this, but it could be really any upper-level class that currently exists.”

A third change worth noting is the creation of Modesitt’s own position. The newly forged role of associate dean of legal analysis and writing should help to institutionalize this emerging institutional focus.

With the creation of Modesitt’s position, and the hiring of three new faculty in support of the writing program, “We are putting our money where our mouth is,” Starger says. “UB has rightfully had the reputation of producing practice-ready attorneys, and now we’re honing that and getting better at it.”

Stakeholder buy-in

In order to steer this new curricular course, the administration sought extensive stakeholder buy-in from the start.

First, a faculty subcommittee set out to explore the question of what students needed in order to be best equipped to go out and practice law. “That committee produced a lengthy report and some specific recommendations,” Modesitt says. “Then we had multiple hearings among the faculty on the contours of the proposal, and a lot of debate about it. Ultimately, the faculty approved this new approach.”

Some might ask, why now? After all, analysts have been saying for some time that artificial intelligence will be reshaping the way lawyers work in the future, and it could potentially be doing much of their legal writing.

Associate Dean Colin Starger

In fact, AI will at best be augmenting lawyers in their written communications — by producing first drafts, for example. It will be up to the lawyers to make effective use of those machine-generated words, Modesitt says, and they’ll need strong analytic skills in order to do that effectively.

Today’s AI applications “don’t really understand hierarchy of authorities, what cases are relevant, or things like that. AI is not well versed in legal analysis generally,” she says. Going forward, it will be “critically important to be able to assess what AI produces.”

The outputs of AI “can look perfectly fine, but if you know how to do legal analysis, you would see major problems with it,” she says. “It is critically important that our students understand the process of creating solid legal analysis, in part so that they can better assess what they see with generative AI.”

All these changes promise to put students in a better position as they tackle the bar exam and embark upon their legal careers.

“Their foundation will be more solid in their first semester, because they’ll have had more time and attention from a faculty member,” Modesitt says. “And they will build stronger skills with repeated exposure to the process of creating written legal analysis.”

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

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FACULTY NOTES

Posted on September 4, 2024September 4, 2024 by Juan Soto in Baltimore Briefs 2024

José Anderson

Article: Commentary: I’ll remember Justice Sandra Day O’Connor for her humility, Balt. Banner (Dec. 6, 2023)

Article: Review of Historic Landmark Designation Application for Loudon County Courthouse in Leesburg, Va., U.S. Department of the Interior (filed Aug. 31, 2023) (solicited submission)

John Bessler

Book chapter: What-Ifs and Missed Opportunities: The U.S. Supreme Court, Death Sentences and Executions, and the 50th Anniversary of Furman v. Georgia, in Death Penalty in Decline?: The Fight Against Capital Punishment in the Decades Since Furman v. Georgia (Austin Sarat, ed.) (May 2024)

Book: The Forgotten Origins of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause (forthcoming)

Fred Brown

Article: Should the Federal Government Help States and Local Governments Pay for Police Misconduct Through Tax-Exempt Bonds?, 42 Va. Tax Rev. 287 (2023)

Anne-Marie Carstens

Book chapter: Heritage Suspension: Law on Public Emergencies, in Routledge Handbook of Heritage and the Law (2024) (with J. Peter Byrne)

Gilda Daniels

Book chapter: Language Assistance Provisions Chapter, in Oxford Handbook of American Election Law (forthcoming 2024)

Book: The Cambridge Companions Series, The History of Voting Rights In The United States (forthcoming 2025)

Michele Gilman

Article: Participation Versus Scale: Tensions in the Practical Demands on Participatory AI, 29 First Monday (April 2024)

Article: Democratizing AI: Principles for Meaningful Public Participation, Data & Soc’y (2023)

Valeria Gomez

Article: Geography as Due Process in Immigration Court, Bender’s Immigr. Bull. (forthcoming

Sarah Gottlieb

Article: Progressive Facade: How Bail Reforms Expose the Limitations of the Progressive Prosecutor Movement, 81 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1 (2024).

Nienke Grossman

Book: Oxford Handbook on Women and International Law (Nienke Grossman, J. Jarpa Dawuni, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, & Hélène Ruiz-Fabri, eds.), (forthcoming 2025)

Book chapter: The ‘Invisible Court’: A First Look at Gender and Nationality in Registries and Secretariats, in Oxford Handbook on Women and International Law (Nienke Grossman, J. Jarpa Dawuni, Jaya Ramji-Nogales & Hélène Ruiz-Fabri, eds.) (forthcoming 2025

Margaret Johnson

Article: Title IX and “Menstruation or Related Conditions”, 30 Mich. J. Gender & L. 25 (2023) (with Marcy L. Karin, Naomi Cahn, Elizabeth B. Cooper, Bridget J. Crawford, & Emily Gold Waldman)

Book: Lawyers, Clients & Narrative: A Framework for Law Students and Practitioners (2d ed.) (2023) (with Carolyn Grose)

Geraldine Kalim

Article: How We Can Best Support Neurodivergent Patrons, AALL Spectrum Mag., (March/April 2024)

Elizabeth Keyes

Article: Clinics and Emergencies, Clinical L. Rev. (Fall 2024) (co-authored with Sabrina Balgamwalla)

Dionne Koller

Book chapter: Deterring Regulation Through the Threat of Sportspocalypse, in The Routledge Handbook of Sports Law and Governance, (Annette Greenhow and John Wolohan, eds.) (forthcoming)

Senate Testimony: Testimony and Participation in the March 20 Hearing Before the Senate Committee on Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection on Promoting a Safe Environment in U.S. Athletics (March 20, 2024)

Katie Kronick

Article: Intellectual Disability, Categorical Mitigation, and Punishment, Bos. Coll. L. Rev. (May 2024)

Neha Lall

Article: CLEA Externship Committee Report: 2023 Survey of Law Schools on Student Compensation in For-Credit Externships, CLEA (April 18, 2024) (with Kate Devlin Joyce and June Tai)

Matthew Lindsay

Article: An Unreasonable Presumption: The National Security/Foreign Affairs Nexus in Immigration Law, 88 Brook. L. Rev. 747 (2023) (co-authored with Hallie Ludsin and Anthony DeMattee)

Article: The Right to Migrate, 27 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 95 (2023)

Zina Makar

Article: The Absence of Dignity in Prison Law, 84 Md. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025)

Article: Per Curiam Signals in the Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket, 98 Wash. L. Rev. 427 (2023)

Hugh McClean

Article: Review of Veterans Law Decisions of the Federal Circuit, 2022-2023 Edition, 73 Am. U. L. Rev. 101 (Summer 2024) (with Yelena Duterte and Stacey-Rae Simcox)

Article: Dred Scott, Military Enslavement, and the Case for Reparations, 113 Kentucky L. Rev. (Fall 2024)

Audrey McFarlane

Book chapter: Zoning’s Racial Innocence and the Imperatives of Segregation, in Intransigence and Hope: The Long Journey towards Racial Justice in American Land Use (Craig Anthony Arnold, Cedric Merlin Powell, Catherine Fosl, and Laura Rothstein, Eds., forthcoming 2025)

Book chapter: Chapter on Race, Property and Power, in Race, Racism and American Law (Derrick Bell, Cheryl Harris, Justin Hansford, Atiba Ellis, Amna Akbar, & Audrey McFarlane, 7th Ed., forthcoming 2025)

Michael Meyerson

Article: When One Door Closes: Legal Education and Racial Justice after Students for Fair Admissions, 103 Neb. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025)

Jennifer Mitchell

Article: Using the Least Populous State Solution, 44.2 Pace L. Rev. (2024)

Article: Why Not More Seats? Increasing the House of Representative’s Size, 44.2 Pace L. Rev. (2024)

Max Oppenheimer

Article: The Artificial Intelligence Solution to Patent Obviousness, Harv. Sports & Ent. L. J. (Fall 2024)

Article: The Perks of Being Human, 80 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1 (2023)

Walter Schwidetzky

Article: What is in a name: Who Qualifies as a Limited Partner for Self-Employment Tax Purposes, 41 J. of Tax’n of Inv. 3 (Winter 2024)

Article: The Worthlessness Deduction for Partnership Interests: An Unguided Missile, Tax Notes (Apr. 17, 2024)

Tim Sellers

Book: Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Mortimer Sellers & Stephan Kirste, eds., 2024)

Book: Handbook of the History of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Mortimer Sellers, Gianfrancesco Zanetti, & Stephan Kirste, eds., 2023)

Matthew Sipe

Article: Patent Law 101: I Know It When I See It, Harv. J. L. & Tech. (2024)

Article: Covering Prying Eyes with an Invisible Hand: Privacy, Antitrust, and the New Brandeis Movement, 36 Harv. J. L. & Tech. 359 (2023)

Amy E. Sloan

Book: Using Generative AI for Legal Research, (1st ed. Mar. 2024)

Book: Basic Legal Research: Tools & Strategies, (Rev. 8th ed. 2024)

Ioanna Tourkochoriti

Article: The Digital Services Act and the EU as the Global Regulator of the Internet, 24 Chi. J. Int’l L. 129 (2023)

Article: Is Neutrality Possible? A Critique of the Court of Justice of the European Union on Headscarves in the Workplace from a Comparative Perspective”, 71 Am. J. Of Comp. L. 1 (2023)

Shanta Trivedi

Book chapter: Surviving the “Child Welfare System”, in Policing Not Protecting Families: The Child Welfare System as Poverty Governance (forthcoming 2025)

Article: Caring for Children by Punishing Parents, The Yale L. & Pol. Econ. Blog (July 24, 2023)

Angela Vallario

Article: Don’t Let Death Be Your Deadline: Get A Will Before It’s Too Late: Expand Holographic-Wills Law to Incentivize Will-Making, 30 The Elder L. J. 349 (2023)

Kim Wehle

Article: Kimberly L. Wehle, The Ninth Amendment Post-Dobbs: Could Federalism Swallow Unenumerated Rights?, 83 Md. L. Rev. 867 (2024).

Sonya Ziaja

Article: Amoral Water Markets, 111.6 Geo. L. J. 1335 (2023) (with Karrigan Bork).

Article: Sonya Ziaja, How Algorithm Assisted Decision Making Is Influencing Climate Adaptation and Environmental Law, 53 Env’t L. & Pol’y Ann. Rev. 10652 (2023)

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Khadyne Augustine Remains Focused on the Human Element in Her Legal Work

Posted on September 4, 2024September 5, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features 2024

By Eric Butterman

Few words describe Khadyne Augustine, J.D. ’20, better than this: focused. Whether as a social worker, or fighting for justice as a member of the UBalt Law Innocence Project Clinic, or in her present role as a senior policy analyst at the Maryland Cannabis Administration, Augustine has been out to provide the focus that will make the difference—all while not forgetting the human beings involved.

That was evident in her early career, working as an HIV social worker on a Ryan White grant, named for the brave boy who put an important face, voice and heart to an issue that was often misunderstood. “I worked with individuals who were both HIV-positive and at different stages of the HIV care continuum that were at great risk, if not already fallen out of care,” she explains. Augustine rolled up her sleeves and advocated for many, whether addressing housing issues, food inequity, health issues, or lack of insurance.

“I saw so many people who went through so much,” she says. “My heart went out to them, and I wanted to make sure they got everything they deserved to live the best life they could.”

Augustine ultimately realized that life would take her into law. While attending UBalt Law, she fought for the wrongly accused. Working from 2018 to 2020 as a student lawyer with the Innocence Project Clinic, she considered it a hallmark experience during her time at school. “I remember someone being identified as having committed a crime. … I went out to a rough part of town and took pictures at the location where the accused was identified. The poor visibility really made me think about the reliability of eyewitness testimony,” she recalls.

The Innocence Project Clinic felt like the closest thing to the nexus between social work and the law, says Augustine, who was also a public interest fellow at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender in 2019, and a legal intern at Disability Rights Maryland in 2018. “Being part of an exoneration, the Innocence Project work was very meaningful work.”

As a senior policy analyst at the Maryland Cannabis Administration, which exists as an independent government agency to oversee cannabis regulation within the state, she still is focused on the human factor. One of her latest projects involved working on the cannabis social-equity licensing round, sitting on the committee that was reviewing hundreds of social-equity applications to open cannabis businesses.

A major challenge of her present job, Augustine shares, is bringing herself up to speed on emergency regulations and permanent regulations. But it’s one she relishes. “Policymaking itself is dynamic, and even with new issues emerging and policies being amended, it can be challenging at times,” she says. “I’m more of a deep diver, so I need context before I jump out and do anything. I’m always willing to go back a few steps to understand.”

Focus. It’s a quality that has stayed with Augustine throughout her career, taken her through many roads, and likely will be with her for whatever comes next.

“I love to see what I can help accomplish and learning new things,” she says. “I couldn’t have predicted these twists in my career, but it’s exciting. I like to make a difference, and that’s what I wanted to do.”

Eric Butterman is a writer based in Texas.
Photo by Juan Pablo Soto Médico.

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Laurie Wasserman Takes Pride in Having Built a Successful Family Law Practice

Posted on September 4, 2024September 5, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features 2024

By Hope Keller

Laurie Wasserman, J.D. ’04, has practiced family law for 20 years, but she remembers distinctly what it felt like to represent her first client as a student in what is now the Bronfein Family Law Clinic.

“One of the things we had to do in clinic was, they took us to the District Court, and we literally picked up clients in the hallways who were going in for protective orders,” Wasserman says. “I have never been more afraid — or more excited — in my life.”

Wasserman has come a long way. Today she oversees the Towson firm she founded in 2018, recently renamed Wasserman White Family Law, where she practices with partner Martha White, J.D. ’06.

“I had been at area law firms for the first 15 years of practicing law, and I wanted to take what I learned and apply it to create what I believe to be the premier family-law firm,” says Wasserman, who in 2020 was accepted as a fellow in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

In addition to the partners, Wasserman White employs five attorneys (three of them UBalt Law graduates), including two attorneys of counsel who joined the firm early this year from Kaufman, Ries & Elgin, which closed.

“When I started it was me and my administrative assistant, and my first year was really just spent seeing if I actually could do this,” Wasserman says. “I had no idea what to expect when I went out on my own.”

Wasserman says she was reinvigorated by the experience of starting her own business.

“I like the strategy of it, I like coming up with new ways to become better and incorporate new technology and bringing in other business practices,” she says. “I find that equally enjoyable to the practice of law.”

Family law wasn’t on her radar when Wasserman started college at the University of Maryland, College Park, with the idea of becoming a journalist.

“I quickly realized after my first semester of being a journalism major that I was not going to be a journalist,” says Wasserman.

After switching her major to criminology and criminal justice, Wasserman took an elective in family law.

“I had no idea up until that moment that this area of law existed,” she says. “I always believed there were only very finite ways to be a lawyer. I had no idea that part of being a lawyer is helping people.”

Representing children, including those with special needs, is particularly important to Wasserman, who has two teenagers with learning differences.

“It’s something I feel passionate about,” says Wasserman, who served on the board of Disability Rights Maryland for six years.

‘I Love What I’ve Created’

“I’ve actually had kids that I have represented say, ‘I want to go to law school; I want to be a family law attorney,’” she says. “I think that’s awesome, that I might have inspired somebody else to want to do this.”

Attorneys at Wasserman White praise Wasserman’s openness to feedback, as well as the helpful input they receive from her.

Senior associate Kumudha Kumarachandran, J.D. ’12, says Wasserman encourages the attorneys to raise concerns – a welcome change, Kumarachandran adds, from the atmosphere at the large national firm where she worked until January.

“She wants to make it the best work environment for all of us,” Kumarachandran says. “It matters to her that we’re happy.”

Senior associate Steffani Langston, J.D. ’18, cited the firm’s culture of collaboration.

“We all get feedback and have the opportunity to help on each other’s cases,” she says. “It benefits our clients, but also helps with each of our own professional growth.”

Associate Virginia Yeoman, J.D. ’18, rounds out the UBalt Law contingent at Wasserman White.

In addition to working with clients and running a business, Wasserman keeps her eye on developments in family law.

She cites a child-custody bill that comes up regularly in the General Assembly, including in the last session, that would have judges begin with a presumption that divorcing parents receive joint legal and physical custody of their children.

The prospect worries Wasserman.

“I think that the court should look at each case, based on the individual factors and the facts, and make that decision,” she says. “I don’t agree with the presumption.”

Wasserman, who received the J. Earle Plumhoff Professional Award from the Baltimore County Bar Association in 2023, has been the chair of the family law committees of both the Baltimore County and Baltimore City bar associations. She also has served as a member of the section council of the Maryland State Bar Association’s family and juvenile law section.

“It’s been an exciting journey, one that I never would have necessarily seen when I started practicing,” Wasserman says. “But I love what I’ve created, and I look forward to making it even better every year.”

Hope Keller is a writer based in Connecticut.

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Dean’s Letter

Posted on September 4, 2024September 4, 2024 by Juan Soto in Dean’s Letter 2024

I am so thrilled to be part of this UBalt Law community. My decision to accept the position of dean feels like coming home in many ways. Off and on throughout my life, Maryland has been home for me. I am so happy to be back and to be a short drive from my mom, a retired teacher who resides in Prince George’s County, and near many family, friends and former professional colleagues who live in the region.

As I get to know this law school and all the dedicated people who give it energy and passion, I am filled with pride in what UBalt Law stands for and all that has been accomplished by our faculty, staff, alumni and friends. I feel tremendous optimism about building on our many successes and harnessing your enthusiasm and goodwill to help us grow even stronger.

I look forward to meeting alumni, supporters and friends in the weeks and months ahead. I will need your help as we set priorities and envision an even brighter future for the law school. We know our students are coming to us with energy and ambition, but also with significant burdens in the post-Covid era. Financial challenges, mental health concerns, and the need to juggle multiple responsibilities outside the classroom all weigh on our students, many of whom lack the support structures that are crucial to their success.

To help our students realize their dreams of becoming lawyers and making a difference in society, we need our community to pitch in as mentors, coaches and employers. We need financial contributions to our bar stipend fund, which improves bar examination passage rates, and to our scholarship programs on which our hard-working students increasingly rely.

Excitingly, 2025 marks the University of Baltimore’s centennial anniversary, an impressive milestone worth celebrating. As we move forward in these complex and often challenging times, let’s recommit to doing what we can to support this law school that means so much to us. Working together, I know we can do great things!

LaVonda Reed
Dean

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LaVonda Reed Joins UBalt Law as Dean

Posted on September 4, 2024September 4, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features 2024

By Christine Stutz

LaVonda Reed’s journey to UBalt Law comprised a rich variety of experiences that have instilled resilience, appetite for adventure, and appreciation for diversity.

Growing up in a military family, Reed lived in such exciting locales as Hawaii and Japan. She went to three different high schools as her father, a U.S. Marine Corps officer, was assigned to different posts. While it was not always easy to move that often, she says, she learned how to make friends quickly and maintain those friendships, often over decades. She also learned to embrace change and find common ground with people from many different backgrounds.

Through it all, for many years Maryland was home, and Reed is very happy to be back. She’s excited about the opportunity to build on the strengths of the law school, especially as it approaches its centennial in 2025.

“I was interested in the deanship because I am passionate about the mission of the school: to provide access to students and to be affordable. UBalt Law has a top-notch faculty and a highly regarded clinical program,” Reed says. “And we are in a vibrant and beautiful city.”

Reed comes to Baltimore Law with experience as a dean at Georgia State University College of Law, and as an associate provost and professor at Syracuse University. She has clear goals for her first year in the role.

“I will get to know people, work on strategic planning for the law school, support student and faculty success, and look for opportunities to collaborate with the wider university,” she says. In addition, one of her major goals is to connect with law alumni and friends, she says, and build relationships within the broader legal, nonprofit and corporate communities.

The law school’s first female dean believes good leadership requires confidence, a willingness to listen, a talent for viewing issues from multiple perspectives, and empathy. It’s important, she says, to have “a learning or growth mindset” and to be “reachable but also teachable.”

Her first two job opportunities in Baltimore did not come to fruition. Reed was offered a teaching position at Baltimore Law in 2006, but she went on to accept an offer from Syracuse University, whose School of Communications offered greater collaborative synergies. In 1997, right before graduating from USC Gould School of Law, her judicial clerkship in the U.S. District Court of Maryland fell through when the judge who had hired her passed away before she could start the job.

But Reed has finally succeeded in putting down roots in Baltimore, a short drive from her mother in Prince George’s County, and an easy train ride from New Haven, where her daughter Madelynn is a sophomore at Yale University. She is excited about reconnecting with her friends, extended family and professional colleagues throughout the region.

“I am so happy to be here!,” says Reed. “You know what they say, the third time’s the charm!”

Christine Stutz director of external relations at UBalt Law and editor of Baltimore Law magazine.

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Female Students Lead Co-Curriculars

Posted on September 4, 2024September 5, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features 2024

By Adam Stone

In law schools, some of the most prestigious posts for students are the heads of the co-curricular activities: The law journals and advocacy competition teams. At UBalt Law, three women now serve as in these roles, as the incoming editors of the Law Review and the Law Forum, and as head of the Board of Advocates.

“The common thread among all three of them is a desire to better their organizations, and to advocate for their people,” says Kris Vicencio, manager of Evening Student & Advocacy Success at UBalt Law. “Even as you lead, you still want to be mindful of your people, and be serving their best interests.

“That’s something all three of them have expressed, in their own individual ways.”

Jessica Kweon, president, Board of Advocates

A third-year day student, Jessica Kweon heads up the Board of Advocates, which oversees the creation and daily operations of UBalt Law’s competitive moot court and trial teams.

As a UMBC undergraduate, she explored a variety of fields: Public health research, bioinformatics research, marketing research, community psychology. “I found that the law was a thoughtful way to combine all of my interests,” she says. “The law touches on every aspect of life, and I’m really taking the time in law school to explore everything that I can.”

Jessica Kweon, left, Jayna Peterson, Shanae Jones

Ironically, perhaps, moot court wasn’t high on her to-do list initially. “When I started law school, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I was very quiet during my first year of law school, I didn’t want to ever speak up,” she says.

The Introduction to Advocacy course helped her find her voice, and when she finally took part in moot court, “I felt such a rush and such a thrill, answering questions, handling my rebuttal. There was a real sense of accomplishment,” she says.

As she takes the helm at the Board of Advocates, “I see moot court and mock trial as a way to build the next generation of attorneys,” she says. “This is where it starts, and I’m really excited to serve in a leadership position that helps facilitate these experiences.”

Of the other women taking top roles at UBalt this year, Kweon says: “The leadership that we have this coming year is really diverse, and we share a vision to empower our students. I look forward to collaborating with some of the brightest minds that we have at our law school.”

Jayna Peterson, Law Forum Editor-in-Chief

A former staff editor of the University of Baltimore Law Forum, third-year student Jayna Peterson became editor-in-chief this year. It’s part of her ongoing journey to leverage the law in the service of justice.

“I grew up watching ‘Dateline’ and true-crime documentaries with my mom, and I learned about cases like the West Memphis Three and Adnan Syed, where egregious injustices occurred,” she says. “I knew that I wanted to play a part in fixing a system that was broken. That was what brought me to law school, and that passion has carried me through.”

Her Law Forum work has sharpened her skills and expanded her reach. “I’ve learned so much about how to improve my writing, how to improve my advocacy,” she says. “And because the Law Forum talks about issues specific to Maryland, I have made so many connections within the legal community.”

Having been diagnosed at age three with Autism Spectrum Disorder, she says she’s eager to ensure inclusivity in the Law Forum, and in the legal community in general.

“Law students with disabilities might not think that they have the bandwidth to take on something extra, or they may not feel a sense of belonging,” she says. “We recently had a diversity panel to talk about different perspectives of people on the journals: Different races, different abilities. I want to have a conversation about belonging, so we can make journals a more accessible space.”

Shanae Jones, Law Review Editor-in-Chief

A fourth-year evening student and working mother of four, Shanae Jones is editor-in-chief of the Law Review, where she previously served as staff editor.

“I took the scenic route to law school,” Jones says. She was on the pre-law track as an undergrad, but by the time she graduated in 2011, “I started having doubts about whether what I thought of as lawyers — the ‘TV lawyers’ I had seen — meshed well with who I believed I was.”

She pivoted to work as a child welfare social worker, a job she still does, but law remained in the picture. “Whenever I’m in court for a kid in the foster care system, there’s an attorney who speaks to the court based on the work that I’ve done,” she says. “Over time, working with lawyers in different capacities, I learned what lawyers actually are and what they actually do. And so I’m back, because I want to be helpful to people.”

Jones says she chose to serve on Law Review because of its prestigious reputation, “and as editor-in-chief, I want it to live up to that reputation,” she says.

“I want to attract a diverse applicant pool. That’s important to me, diversifying what journal looks like, who our staff editors are, and what we publish,” she says. “But I also want to make sure that whatever we’re publishing is objective, that we continue to provide factual, sound information. So, while I certainly want to diversify who and what we publish, that doesn’t mean that I want it to lean a certain way.”

The big picture

Women remain underrepresented in the law. In 2010 they made up just 31 percent of the profession, and by 2023 that number had only crept up to 39 percent, The American Bar Association reports. So it’s not trivial that UBalt Law finds itself with three female students holding top-level positions.

“All three of them have shown remarkable foresight, both in the plans they have for their organizations, and also in recognizing what they want to learn, so that way they can better lead,” Vicencio says. “They’ve shown the ability to simultaneously manage the here-and-now, while also keeping in mind the long-term impacts of their decisions and how those decisions will be perceived.”

Their election to these roles “speaks volumes about the respect that our students have for one another,” he says. “They are looking holistically at what this person has accomplished as part of the organization, what they’re willing to bring.”

In the big picture, “this is a school that emphasizes and celebrates diversity,” he says. “Through no coordination, with no specific input from any administrator or faculty, we’ve found ourselves with three incredibly strong female leaders in three of the most prestigious student organizations. That’s something that should be celebrated.”

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.
Photo by Juan Pablo Soto Médico.