Juan Soto – University of Baltimore School of Law Magazine

UBalt Law Welcomes Five New Faculty Members

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Baltimore Briefs, Baltimore Briefs 2025

Rachel Bennett is the director of UBalt Law’s Maryland Office of the Public Defender Innocence Project Clinic at UBalt Law. The clinic identifies individuals who have been wrongfully convicted in Maryland state courts, conducts extensive investigation, and litigates legal claims seeking to overturn wrongful convictions. The Innocence Project Clinic engages in advocacy work to challenge the systemic failures that lead to wrongful convictions.

Before joining the MOPD Innocence Project Clinic, which has been in operation for 17 years, Bennett was a senior attorney with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, where she represented detained individuals in removal proceedings, and served as a qualified representative for noncitizens found incompetent to represent themselves.

Prior to the Amica Center, she was an assistant public defender with the Maryland Office of the Public Defender for 11 years, where she practiced in misdemeanor and felony divisions and with the statewide Post Conviction Defenders. She earned her law degree at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Chrysanthemum Desir is a clinical teaching fellow in the Criminal Defense and Advocacy Clinic. She formerly served as a juvenile public defender in Baltimore City. 

Desir graduated from Yale Law School in 2018 and was a student-attorney in the Criminal Defense, Juvenile Defense and Re-entry clinics. She also was involved in several legal education projects, including co-directing and teaching in the Marshall-Brennan Project, co-founding a tutoring program that brought law students into a low-income elementary school, and co-creating a Know Your Rights program using a “train the trainers” model through the Black Law Students Association.

Her research interests include criminal defense pedagogy, political epistemology, LGBTQ criminal justice issues with a focus on youth, and police violence. She co-taught a clinical seminar, “Intervening in the Criminalization of Youth and Queer and Trans Individuals,” at Yale Law School before joining the UBalt Law clinical faculty.

Gabrielle Fortunato is a clinical teaching fellow in the Maryland Office of the Public Defender Innocence Project Clinic. Prior to joining the law school faculty, she was an assistant public defender for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender from 2022 to 2025, and a deputy state public defender for the Colorado State Public Defender from 2021 to 2022.

She has defended hundreds of indigent clients in misdemeanor and felony criminal proceedings at bail review hearings, motions hearings, and trials.

She earned her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School.

Alex Maisel is a clinical teaching fellow in The Bob Parsons Veterans Advocacy Clinic. Prior to joining the UBalt Law faculty, he served as an associate counsel for the Board of Veterans’ Appeals. In this role, he drafted more than 400 appellate decisions for signature by a veterans law judge.

Maisel was tasked with reviewing appeals of lower-level benefits decisions for veterans of the armed services and applying a complex and rapidly changing body of law to each veteran’s particular set of facts.

Before embarking on his career in veterans law, Maisel was a member of the Office of General Counsel for the United States Sentencing Commission, which sets national sentencing policy for federal criminal cases. While at the Commission, he co-authored Revocations Among Federal Offenders, a data-driven research publication examining recidivism in the population of federal criminal offenders.

Earlier in his career, he was as an assistant state’s attorney for Baltimore City. He holds a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, and an M.A. in Continental (contemporary European) Philosophy from University College Dublin. 

Olivia Molineux joined the UBalt Law faculty as a clinical teaching fellow in the Bronfein Family Law Clinic.

Previously, she was an attorney for children in New York, where she represented children in abuse, neglect, custody and juvenile delinquency proceedings. Molineux also has experience as a corporate attorney.

She was a capital markets associate in London at two international law firms.

Molineux earned her J.D. from Cornell Law School and her B.S. from Cornell University.

Ben Wilson is a clinical teaching fellow in the Mediation Clinic for Families. He previously served as staff attorney and Catalyst Fellow at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, where he co-led research on racial equity initiatives and developed community conflict resolution tools, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service.

As former director of training with Prison of Peace, Wilson taught mediation and restorative justice in California state prisons. He graduated from Pepperdine University School of Law in 2017, where he earned his J.D. and Master’s in Dispute Resolution. He is pursuing a doctorate at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Author is a writer based in Baltimore.

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The Lasting Legacy of Professor Jack Lynch

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2025

By Amy Sloan

Forty-seven years. That’s how long Professor John (Jack) Lynch taught at UBalt Law. He joined the law faculty in 1978, before some of our current faculty members were born! Professor Lynch retired at the end of the spring 2025 semester and was awarded the status of Professor Emeritus.

How could anyone distill such a long and distinguished career in a few short paragraphs? It’s impossible to capture all the ways Professor Lynch influenced UBalt Law, but the highlights demonstrate his lasting impact.

Over the course of his career, Professor Lynch produced an exceptional body of scholarship. His many law review articles have appeared in journals such as Baylor Law Review, Nebraska Law Review, South Carolina Law Review, and Santa Clara Law Review, as well as a number of specialty tax journals. He is also co-author of two books, The Art of Advocacy: Jury Instructions (1989) and Modern Maryland Civil Procedure (2004).

Professor Lynch’s scholarship in the areas of tax law, civil procedure and legal writing is especially noteworthy. In partnership taxation, his work was ahead of its time, according to Professor Walter Schwidetzky. Just a couple of months ago, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden cited one of Professor Lynch’s articles in support of a proposal to amend partnership tax rules. Professor Lynch’s Modern Maryland Civil Procedure is a definitive work on Maryland procedural law. In the area of legal writing, he published articles to spread the good word about UBalt Law’s writing curriculum. He did much to raise the law school’s profile in the national writing community.

Professor Lynch also provided exemplary service to the law school. It would be impossible to list the many committees on which he served over the years. From 2010 to 2013, he served as associate dean for academic affairs. After his term concluded, he stood in the wings, ready at any time to offer counsel to his successors or take on an extra task as a favor. In 2022, he received the UBalt Law Faculty Service Award for outstanding service.

Teaching was another of Professor Lynch’s strengths. He taught Civil Procedure, Conflict of Laws, Federal Income Tax, Federal Courts, Introduction to Lawyering Skills, Maryland Civil Procedure, Partnership Taxation, and Property. He taught in the evening division almost every semester because he felt a special kinship with the evening students.

From 1993 until 2007, he ran the University of Baltimore School of Law Summer Institute. This was a summer program for conditionally admitted students. Through four weeks of concentrated instruction, conditionally admitted students got the additional support they needed to succeed in law school. He created materials, scheduled activities, recruited faculty, and taught in the program. This is just another example of how he placed student needs front and center.

In recognition of his student-centered teaching, Professor Lynch received a number of teaching awards: Outstanding University of Baltimore Faculty Member, 1981; BLSA Recognition for Support in the Success of Black Law Students, 1994; Women’s Bar Association Professor of the Year, 1996; BLSA James May Award, 1999; Outstanding Teaching by a Full-Time Faculty Member, 2002; Outlaw Outstanding Contribution Award, 2012.

Any account of Professor Lynch’s teaching would be incomplete without an acknowledgment of his contributions to our writing curriculum. He began his academic career teaching writing courses at The George Washington University Law School. After joining the faculty at UBalt Law, he retained his love for teaching analysis through writing. When the law school transitioned from having 1L writing taught by adjunct faculty to full-time faculty, Professor Lynch was first in line to teach the course. The law school would not have been able to develop its outstanding writing curriculum without his leadership.

Professor Lynch has a dry sense of humor and a wry smile. He has been my friend since the day I started at UBalt Law and my neighbor on the 11th floor of the Angelos Law Center for the past several years. I will miss him terribly and wish him all the best in this next step. The law school will not be the same without him. Good luck, Jack!

Amy Sloan is a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

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Paid Externship Program Leads the Way with Groundbreaking Model

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2025

By Matthew Liptak

During her legal career, Professor Neha Lall has always been an advocate and mentor who meets people where they are. Lall, UBalt Law’s Director of Externships, knows how helpful paid externships can be to students who have to manage both their education and budgeting finances for daily necessities. Lall started out her career as an advocate for victims of abuse. Now she is helping forge a new model of experiential learning that is changing the legal educational landscape in America.

Lall is one of a handful of legal subject matter experts who are leading the way in creating impactful paid externships programs, which allow students to earn academic credit for legal work while also being paid. In the three years since UBalt Law began building out its paid externship program, 73 percent of externs have been paid, either directly by the employer or through a public service stipend. She said externships offer law students the opportunity to explore their education in a way that brings them back to the passion that brought them into the profession. Paid externships can also provide some relief from financial stress, as they consider how to juggle daily expenses and school loans.

“What I really love about my role as an externship teacher is that I work with the students to get back to their ‘Why?’ To figure out why they are here. What is it that they really want to do with their law degree, and how do they get there?” says Lall.

Most law students get their first jobs through internship and externship connections they’ve made at organizations they’ve worked for, she says. Just over 10 percent of top students generally get hired by big law firms, many through on-campus interviewing programs. The other 90 percent of students have to hustle to gain experience and connections to land a post-graduate job. Externships teach students to become self-directed learners: Students must lay the groundwork for themselves, identify their goals, and learn to self-advocate. This fosters the kind of initiative that leads students into fulfilling careers aligned with their own skills and values.

Lall believes students who are more invested in their externships will get more out of them. For many students, getting paid for their time helps students feel seen and raises the bar on their performance. When students have a voice, they can find experiential learning opportunities that align with their goals, evoke more commitment, and ultimately make for a better learning experience.

The field placement experience is backed up by an academic course with a seminar and weekly assignments. Externship seminars are relatively small and meet weekly for a 75-minute online discussion. Lall stipulates a maximum of 15 students, but she really would like to see that number limited to a dozen. She says the students and faculty instructor must get to know each other for the externship to be effective. She also encourages all students to speak up in class.

The academic component is required to be qualified as legitimate and educational by the American Bar Association (ABA), which accredits law schools.

“I wanted to be careful about the temptation to just slap credits on any job,” Lall says.

Although the ABA has green-lighted paid externships, there remains institutional resistance to the concept at other universities around the country. UBalt Law’s paid externship program, and those like it, have often faced an uphill battle to find support. Critics believe that the act of including pay with a student’s externship might sully the educational experience, perhaps leading to exploitation by employers, or a lessening of academic standards.

But Lall and her UBalt Law program has shown much of that concern is unfounded, and the law school has curbed the critics by meticulously collecting data on students’ fieldwork..

Lall is invested enough in this field that she completed a groundbreaking, data-driven study on paid externships that was accepted for publication earlier this year, and she is working on a second that she hopes to publish next year. She says the findings were surprising — both the demographics of who was being helped, and who was doing the hiring of paid externs.

“Paid placements were available across all sectors, including public interest placements. And participation by women in externships skyrocketed, especially in law firms,” she says. Her findings from four years of data concluded that law students with directly paid externships received more diverse and higher-quality learning opportunities than their unpaid peers or those receiving public service stipends. This directly contradicts the position of critics of paid externship, who argue that paid students are likely to get worse work because employers would put profit before learning. Directly paid students also received long-term employment offers from law firms, and both state prosecution and public defender offices, at much higher rates than unpaid students.

Lall believes that supervisors pay more attention to people they are paying, as opposed to unpaid volunteers. That leads to better training, more supervision, and ultimately, better learning experiences for students.

In April of 2025, Lall was honored for her work by the American Association of Law Schools with an Emerging Leader Award. Her peers have lauded her, too.

“I think the research and the scholarship that she is doing is among the most important scholarship that is coming out of our community,” said Nira Geevargis, clinical professor and director of externships at the University of California College of Law at San Francisco. “Her research is really of the moment — very cutting edge.”

Ali Trdina is vice president of the University of Baltimore School of Law Student Bar Association and a member of the law school’s Class of 2026. She was a student of Lall’s, and because of her experience with compiling empirical data, she was one of the people who assisted Lall on her study.

“She’s just a great person to work with,” Trdina says. “Having someone analyze my work in real time, and giving me that feedback, also in real time, that was really helpful for me.”

Reflecting on her career trajectory, Lall now recognizes that being an advocate and developer of the paid externship program at UBalt Law is really where she wants to be now. It allows her to push forward with projects and programs that help others, which seems to fit her intuitive passion for the law.

“When I took this job, I thought this would be a great way to get to know the Baltimore community and connect my real-life practice to teaching. But I just really ended up loving this job,” she says.

Matthew Liptak is a writer based in Severna Park.

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Former Law Dean Katz Passes Away at Age 85

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Baltimore Briefs, Baltimore Briefs 2025

Laurence “Larry” Katz, retired dean of The University of Baltimore School of Law and a highly respected member of both the Baltimore legal profession and the city’s Jewish community, passed away on July 21, 2025. Katz served as dean of the law school from 1978 to 1993.

Here are excerpts from a July 22 email to the UBalt community from UBalt President Kurt L. Schmoke.

While it’s true that every faculty member and administrator leaves a legacy at their institution, for Katz that ability crossed many boundaries, both inside the law school and far beyond.

I agree with Prof. Walter Schwidetzky, who says, “It would be hard to overstate Dean Katz’s value to the law school. He laid the foundation for the school we have today.”

As Walter and others have noted, achievements like the school’s admission to the American Association of Law Schools marked an evolution in both the scholarly capabilities and the academic reputation of the school. UBalt became a regional powerhouse for legal education during Larry’s deanship.

I can vouch for the many assessments of Larry’s impact that are making their way around town today. As the city’s mayor during a portion of Larry’s time as dean, I found him to be a true believer in UBalt’s mission, and a great partner and confidant in my job in politics. I would characterize my relationship with him in the same way others have, both then and now: Larry’s advice was the same as Larry’s support. There was no dividing line between his wise counsel and his utter belief in his friends, family, colleagues and students. In its own way, this is profoundly meaningful.

As Prof. Robert Rubinson put it, “Larry was incredibly warm, supportive, and kind. He exuded decency. We all benefit every day from what he accomplished here, but his greatest accomplishment was the generosity with which he lived his life.”

After Katz stepped down as dean, he returned to the faculty to teach business law, corporate and securities regulation, commercial transactions, and more. I have no doubt that what he gave to his students, and his colleagues as well, will continue to live with them for many years to come, in both how the law works, and how life does as well.

To be sure, the UBalt community will miss Larry Katz. But we find comfort in knowing that we knew him, and he knew us, too.

A number of current and former UBalt School of Law faculty have also written tributes to Dean Katz:

Prof. Emeritus Robert Lande: “Larry was the law school dean when UB hired me. In July 1987, while I was preparing my first courses, Judge Bork was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bork and his supporters said he should be confirmed because, unlike many other justices, he was a “strict constructionist” who would simply interpret statutes the way Congress intended, and not legislate. But I had done extensive research on Judge Bork’s antitrust scholarship, and my research demonstrated the opposite. I could show that Bork completely disregarded the intent of Congress in order to promote his own ideology.

“I decided to publish an article in a legal magazine, and submit it to the relevant Congressional Committee, demonstrating that Bork was an “unprincipled hypocrite” who didn’t care what Congress intended. He was actually the opposite of a strict constructionist.

“The only problem with my plan was that Dean Katz was a strong Bork supporter. And I was just a brand new professor who had never taught even one class.

“With trepidation I sent Dean Katz a copy of my article, which was published a month before the vote on Bork. Dean Katz asked me to come to his office. I arrived shaking. He told me it was wonderful that I had published my article, how this was exactly the type of thing faculty should be doing, how this made UB look good, and how even though he was a Bork supporter, he was really happy that I had published it.

“I came away from that meeting both relieved, and also delighted that Dean Katz truly believed in academic freedom. I knew then that I was incredibly lucky to be working at UB.”

Prof. Fred Brown: “I joined the faculty during the tail end of Larry’s deanship. I know that he turned the faculty from purely a teaching faculty to one that also focused on

scholarship, but this big transformation occurred a few years before I arrived. What stands out for me about Larry was his caring attitude and kindness.

“During my first year at UBalt, Larry observed one of my classes. It was a three-hour class, and he was only going to stay for the first half. But during the first part of class, I got bogged down with a student’s question, and I didn’t think it went well. Larry actually stayed for the whole class, and afterwards I assumed he did so because the class didn’t go that well. So I was pretty upset after the class.

“The next day we spoke, and afterwards, I felt so much better. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something like it was no big deal that it wasn’t a perfect class, and that everyone, including himself, can always improve on their teaching. He was so soothing and kind, and this meant a lot to me, who at that time was a quite young faculty member.

“About a year later, UBalt was facing a financial crisis, and it was seriously considering implementing its retrenchment plan, under which the last ones hired would be the first to go. For the law school, that was me. I recall discussing this with him on a Thursday or Friday. Needless to say, this was very concerning to me. That Sunday, Larry called me at home to tell me that retrenchment was off the table, and that I could rest easy. He could have easily just waited until business hours on Monday to tell me the news, but Larry wanted me to know as soon as possible. By the way, there was no email back then.

“That was Larry. He was a towering figure in the Baltimore legal community, but he always remained so kind and considerate. Truly a great human being.”

Prof. Michael Hayes: “Shortly after I arrived at UB Law in 1998, a different giant of the school—the late Byron Warnken— told me that when Larry Katz became dean, The Baltimore Sun reported it with the words, “With someone of his stature there, we will have to begin taking U of Balt Law School more seriously.”

“I echo what all my colleagues have said: Larry Katz was one of the most impressive persons I’ve ever known—wise, kind, and generous. I’ll never forget at the shiva for his son Danny how Larry was so gracious and attentive to every guest—from Maryland political leaders to current students. All when his heart must have been breaking.”

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Johnson, Keyes Named to Associate Dean Roles

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Baltimore Briefs, Baltimore Briefs 2025

Two professors at The University of Baltimore School of Law have been named to associate dean roles for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Prof. Margaret E. Johnson has been named Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development. In her role, she focuses on supporting and enhancing the research activities of faculty members within the law school.

Johnson joined the faculty in 2006. Her current research examines legal issues of reproductive justice. She asks questions about how women and other pregnancy-capable individuals are subject to structural and intersectional forms of oppression.

She explored comparative menstruation law and policy as a 2023 Fulbright Scholar at UTS in Sydney, Australia. Her current research examines reproductive freedom, criminalization of pregnant people, and state constitutional law.

In addition, Johnson’s research addresses the use of narrative theory, critical reflection, and normative theory in lawyering for clients. Johnson’s articles have been published in the Wisconsin Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, and B.Y.U. Law Review, among others. She is co-author of the book Lawyers, Clients & Narrative: A Framework for Law Students and Practitioners (2nd ed. 2023). Her research has been relied upon and cited by courts, media, and other scholars. In 2020, she received The University of Baltimore School of Law’s award for Outstanding Scholarship by a Full-Time Faculty Member.

Prof. Elizabeth Keyes has been named Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. In her role, she provides leadership and oversight for academic programs, curriculum development, faculty support, and student success initiatives within the law school. She works closely with the dean, faculty, and other administrators to enhance the quality of academic offerings and ensure a positive learning experience for students.

Keyes, an expert in immigration and asylum law, joined the UBalt Law faculty in 2012. She teaches Immigration Law, Professional Responsibility, Introduction to Lawyering Skills, and Civil Procedure. In all her teaching, she has a passion for deepening law students’ analytical and lawyering skills so that they will thrive in the legal profession. She also directed UBalt Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic for 10 years.

Her scholarship focuses on the gaps in access to protection for migrants fleeing both persecution and the effects of climate change, and on the state of lawyering in the U.S. immigration system.

“I am thrilled about the appointment of Associate Deans Johnson and Keyes,” says UBalt Law Dean LaVonda N. Reed. “Both are exceptional scholars and teachers, whose work has positively impacted the advancement of knowledge and lawyering skills, and both are deeply committed to promoting the work of our faculty, staff, and students.”

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New Senior Staff Hires in 2025

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Baltimore Briefs, Baltimore Briefs 2025

Daa’iyah Lang joined the School of Law as senior business manager in September 2025.

She is an accomplished business and finance leader with more than 18 years of experience driving financial strategy, compliance, and operational excellence across complex global organizations. As associate director of finance at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, she managed budgets exceeding $100 million, led large international teams, and strengthened systems for transparency and fraud prevention. Her leadership has spanned continents, including key roles in Uganda and Tanzania, where she oversaw major USAID-funded initiatives and built local capacity through mentorship and training.

In her current tole, Land serves as a strategic advisor on all fiscal and operational matters under the Law School’s Responsibility Centered Management model. In this role, she oversees financial planning, business operations, and workforce management, ensuring the School’s resources align with its mission and long-term goals. She holds a master’s degree in Accounting and Financial Management from the University of Maryland Global Campus.

As director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at UBalt Law, Stephen Cirino leads strategic initiatives that enhance the experiences of students, faculty, staff and alumni. He collaborates with university stakeholders and leadership to advance policies, procedures and programs that drive sense of belonging, professional and leadership development, and equitable learning environments.

Before joining UBalt Law in January 2025, Cirino built a career in academia and the music industry. At the University of the Arts, he developed measurable frameworks and initiatives, launched Inclusive Philly to amplify voices, and partnered with community organizations to create meaningful impact, earning recognition from NPR. He was honored with the President’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2021 for his excellence in education.

Before academia, Cirino spent seven years at Sony Music Entertainment/Red Distribution, where he played a pivotal role in releasing multiple platinum and gold records. As the founder of Future Management, he spearheaded the release of eight Billboard-charting albums and provided industry insights on platforms such as CNBC, discussing the rise of Spotify.

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The Evolving Role of the In-House Counsel

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2025

By Adam Stone

For Danielle Roland, J.D. ’12, working as in-house counsel means tackling big-picture questions. As general counsel at Michigan-based ANDRITZ Schuler North America, she evaluates risk in everything from hiring practices to leases on buildings, always with an eye toward the company’s overall strategic ambitions.

“It’s about being involved in the strategy and the goals of the company, knowing: What’s our plan 10 years down the road?” she says. By understanding that big picture, “I can then give direction and legal guidance.”

Law firms draw the lion’s share of lawyers– over 445,000, according to the most recent data from the Association of Corporate Counsel. But there are other paths: Over 140,000 lawyers work as in-house counsel. UBalt Law graduates who go the in-house route say the job is both complex and highly satisfying. They often are deeply embedded — not just in a company’s legal work, but in its strategic decision-making.

An evolving role

The work of in-house counsel has increasingly focused on business leadership in recent years. Today the job is “strategic in nature,” says Cory Myers, J.D. ’07, associate general counsel for intellectual property at KPMG in Washington, D.C. In his case, “that can include strategic thoughts about investments in particular technologies and developing an IP portfolio around that.”

The job involves “working with the business team leaders to understand what makes the business tick, then making sure we’re developing legal strategy in accordance with those business goals,” he says.

Roland became ANDRITZ Schuler North America’s first in-house general counsel nine years ago. “When I started, it was mostly reviewing contracts, helping with sales orders. It was very transactional,” she says.

That has changed over time. “It’s really become more of a strategic role,” she says. That includes “being proactive on risk management, being involved with the board of directors and planning for the company’s growth and success.”

To deliver in such a role, “you really have to know a little bit about a lot of things,” says James Beslity, J.D. ’19, who serves as corporate counsel at HomeServices of America and its largest operating company, The Long & Foster Companies.

“I routinely am engaged not just in traditional real estate-related matters, but employment, various types of litigation, intellectual property, transactional work,” he says. “Practically speaking, you need to be able to do it all.”

Challenges and rewards

The increasingly wide-ranging role of in-house counsel comes with unique challenges and rewards.

There are challenges when it comes to the actual lawyering. When you’re in house, “they never want to hear you say, ‘No, you can’t do that,’” Roland says. “Outside counsel can say that: ‘Hey, this is way too risky, you shouldn’t do that.’”

As in-house counsel, “they want to figure out how we can do this,” she says. “The challenge is to figure out how can we do it, but in the best way possible for the company.”

Beslity, meanwhile, finds himself juggling multiple non-lawyerly responsibilities. “I manage my own mail and my calendar,” he says. “Many companies these days are reducing headcount, trying to make the most of the resources they have. If you’re capable of handling administrative tasks — what some in the legal profession might consider grunt work — you’re doing it.”

But the rewards can make it worth it.

“When you’re in private practice, you’re working based on what the client may have as an immediate priority, and you can be working on a singular thing for months,” without ever getting to be part of the bigger picture, Myers says. As in-house, “I really enjoy seeing the full scope of a project.”

Roland likewise takes satisfaction in the big-picture nature of her role. As in-house counsel, “you have an integral role in shaping the company and where it’s going,” she says.

For Beslity, the breadth of tasks gives him a chance not just to utilize his legal skills, but also to build real relationships. As in-house counsel, “you have to be a people person,” he says. “I’m in my office right now and the marketing team is down the hall, the accounting team is down the hall, and I can see Long and Foster’s CEO’s office from here. My clients are sitting all around me.”

Making the transition

Why go in-house? For Myers, who started out in a law firm, it was largely a lifestyle choice. In-house work “is different in terms of the work-life balance,” he says. “It’s still a ton of work, but you have a little bit more ability to control your schedule in an in-house role, which was good for me. I had younger kids at the time, so that was appealing to me.”

For those looking to make the leap, there are multiple pathways from private practice to an in-house opportunity.

Roland, for example, had previously worked at a law firm, setting up corporations and advising clients on business issues. With that background in transactional corporate work, going in-house “wasn’t a huge change for me,” she says. “It wasn’t like I was coming from medical malpractice litigation.”

Hand-on experience while at UBalt Law helped as well. “One of the things the law school does so well is their practical learning experience,” she says. “I did two internships while I was there, and that gave me such great practical experience, along with having so many faculty members who were practicing attorneys. All that made a big difference for my work, my career.”

Beslity, meanwhile, had also left a law firm and was looking to start his next chapter when he took his first in-house position, as associate counsel with Maryland REALTORS®. With a background in real estate law, “it just seemed like the perfect opportunity,” he says.

It felt like a leap of faith to leave the conventional litigation track, he says. “But honestly, at this point, this is my dream job.”

He encourages law students to get involved early, if they’re interested in an in-house career. “Get out there and find those practical experiences,” he says, noting that UBalt Law can help to make that happen.

“The Law Career Development Office is probably my favorite entity within the law school,” he says. “They do incredible work, really encouraging students to get out there and find those practical experiences.”

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

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CFCC at 25: Changing the Narrative

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2025

By Christianna McCausland

Aubrey Edwards-Luce, left, CFCC executive director, and Prof. Shanta Trivedi, CFCC faculty director, have shifted the Center’s focus to family preservation.

When Prof. Shanta Trivedi became faculty director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Family, Children and the Courts (CFCC) in 2021, she knew she was building on an incredible foundation laid by the center’s founding director, Professor Emerita Barbara Babb. Rather than find the opportunity daunting, she and executive director Aubrey Edwards-Luce, who joined in 2023, have made CFCC very much their own.

Trivedi explains that for its first 20 years, CFCC’s focus was on creating an environment where people could experience the law with more dignity. “But no matter how kind the legal actors and the legal system seem to be, there’s always some kind of trauma,” she says. “Our shift has been to focus more on preventing people from interacting with legal systems unnecessarily—particularly those systems that have severe consequences for families, including family separation.” Legal systems separate families through foster care, incarceration of adults, and detention or commitment of youth, Trivedi says.

She explains that going forward, CFCC’s work is focused on three key areas: disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline, reducing the harms of the child welfare/family regulation system, and the youth legal system. These are systems Trivedi and Edwards-Luce know well. Trivedi, who is an assistant professor of law, previously represented parents in family regulation cases. Edwards-Luce, who was a social worker prior to becoming an attorney, represented children in those proceedings.

Today, CFCC is evolving its signature program, the Tackling Chronic Absenteeism Program (TCAP). Begun in 2005, TCAP – then known as the Truancy Court Project — engages students, parents, schools and the legal system to tackle the underlying issues of chronic absenteeism before it can lead to truancy court and harmful interaction with the law. Edwards-Luce explains that CFCC made a data-informed decision to shift its work exclusively to middle schoolers, and to work intensively and intentionally in three schools. “We’re also strengthening our relationship with the Maryland Office of the Public Defender,” she says. “We’re starting the process of taking referrals of young people who have been in youth jails and are now released back to the community who are trying to get connected to school and are in need of some educational supports.”

Trivedi is a passionate legal scholar and policy advocate in the CFCC’s focus area of family regulation. Her writings on the topic have appeared in prestigious law reviews and in media outlets including Ms. Magazine and Slate. She explains that too often, a child is removed from a household for reasons that have more to do with poverty and discrimination than safety. Removals lead to extreme and often irreparable trauma for both children and their parents.

“There are estimates that a third of the children in foster care could be reunited with their families if they had secure housing, for example,” says Trivedi. “There are systemic causes that lead parents to be in precarious financial situations that could, certainly, be harmful to their children. But the response, rather than to provide the families with support, is to separate those families and, ironically, pay foster parents to care for those children instead of giving the money to families who need the financial support.”

In addition to writing and advocating around the harm of family removal, CFCC recently conducted a training with approximately 100 Baltimore City School psychologists to help them interrogate the standard of reporting for abuse and neglect to Child Protective Services, and explore alternatives to reporting, such as connecting families with community resources like a food pantry. Through its newest project, the Child Welfare and Racial Equity Collaborative (CWARE), which Edwards-Luce launched in 2020, CFCC also published a free Know Your Rights Toolkit to educate families on how to navigate the family regulation system, and it conducted a nationwide webinar on the toolkit.

CFCC wants to ensure that its work is informed by the lived experience of those who understand it best—those who have been in foster care, for example, or parents who have experienced child separation—rather than only by well-intentioned attorneys. Coalition building has been an important expansion area for the center’s leadership. CFCC has worked with families and like-minded organizations to establish Maryland Families Together, a community of advocates who center the innovation and expertise of directly impacted people and communities. CFCC is also part of the Maryland Youth Justice Coalition and the state’s Coalition to Reform School Discipline, among many others.

CFCC is deepening its commitment to service and advocacy. Edwards-Luce serves on Gov. Wes Moore’s Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform and Emerging Best Practices and has been appointed by the American Bar Association’s president to serve on its Commission on Youth and Family Justice. Both women are part of the Maryland Youth Justice Coalition and the state’s Coalition to Reform School Discipline, among others.

Trivedi is a board member for the Maryland Child Alliance and the Redlich Horowitz Foundation. She also provides training and resources on family regulation and family law issues to community organizations, advocates and members of the judiciary, both in Maryland and nationwide. Last year, CFCC submitted written or oral testimony on over 20 bills related to its areas of focus and hopes to increase that advocacy and grow student involvement in this work in future.

Much of what Trivedi and Edwards-Luce want to do is change the narrative around how families and individuals experiencing these legal systems are perceived, away from the negative portrayals common in media to the reality: people facing challenges that drag them into court proceedings are generally doing their very best in difficult circumstances. In so doing, CFCC hopes to keep youth and families away from harmful and often unnecessary legal proceedings so they can be productive parents, caregivers, students and community members and fufill their greatest potential.

Christianna McCausland is a writer based in Baltimore.

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Mentoring Plays Key Role in Student, Alumni Success

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2025

By Adam Stone

For many attorneys, mentoring is the key to success. The American Bar Association reports that 85 percent of women and 81 percent of multicultural professionals say they need “navigational help” at some point in their careers.

UBalt Law meets that need in part through moot court and mock trial, where alumni coaches typically do more than just fine-tune specific legal skills. They also mentor the student competitors, helping them to develop leadership traits, career-planning skills, and overall self-confidence. And the mentors say these relationships in turn make them better leaders and better lawyers themselves.

Here are a few of their stories.

‘Joy in seeing someone else succeed’

Erek Barron, the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, greatly increased African American representation in the office. Beatrice “Bea” Thomas, J.D. ’19, became an assistant U.S. attorney in 2022 under his leadership.

“He had been a mentor to me at my previous firm, and he just did not hesitate to support me,” Thomas says. Through UBalt Law, she is supporting others in turn, coaching mock trial and also mentoring first-year students through the Law Career Development Office.

She’s also starting a term as president of the Alliance of Black Women Attorneys of Maryland, a post previously held by all the major mentors in her life: Maryland Supreme Court Justice Shirley M. Watts; Hon. Teresa Epps Cummings, J.D. ’02; and Johns Hopkins VP for Civic Engagement and Opportunity Alicia Wilson.

As Thomas mentors students and others in the skills of leadership, she focuses on communication: Not just what they say, but also “actively listening to other people, which is so important,” she says. She puts a premium on empathy, “understanding that everyone has a different journey … that shapes who they are and how they think.”

And she leans heavily into strategic thinking. “None of us has the capacity to do everything all the time. You have to pick a few things that you know you want to dedicate your time to, the things that are important to you. And then when you do that, do it well,” she says.

Helping others to thrive is a source of personal pride for Thomas, who can appreciate the importance of having strong professional role models early on.

Black women make up a tiny fraction of the legal profession, “and for me there’s a joy in seeing someone else succeed, seeing them forge a path forward,” she says, “I get great satisfaction from problem-solving and helping people become resilient in this thing called the law — because it’s not for the faint of heart.”

‘Incredibly rewarding’

As a law student, Jessica Swadow, J.D. ’16, was on the moot court appellate advocacy competition team. UBalt Law adjunct professor Laurie Bennett showed her the ropes, helping to hone her skills. Bennett went on to become a mentor and a friend.

“I always seek her opinion,” says Swadow, who is contracts associate counsel at Towson University. “She’s been a sounding board for musings on my career, a great person for me to bounce ideas off of.”

Bennett’s model of leadership has helped Swadow to become a leader herself: Since 2017, she’s partnered with her former mentor to co-coach the moot court team.

“We work with the students to enhance their skills in brief writing, and their oral advocacy skills for competition,” Swadow says. And the relationships go deeper than that. “It always expands well beyond the competition. I provide a lot of mentoring and feedback on everything from things to do with law school classes, to what they want to do after law school, thinking about different career options.”

The mentoring relationship “is incredibly rewarding,” she says. “I get to see those skills develop, to see them become better advocates, better critical thinkers. It is fantastic.”

‘The attorney personality that fits them’

As an assistant public defender in Baltimore County, Amanda Sirleaf, J.D. ’23, knows it takes inner strength to succeed in the courtroom. As she coaches and mentors law students in mock trial, she looks to share that strength with others.

“The first thing that’s super important is making sure their confidence is up, because there’s a lot of self-doubt in this profession — for everyone,” she says. “As a leader, I try to shine a light on things that are specific about them: ‘You’re really good at making people feel emotions,’ or, ‘You’re really good at describing things and breaking things down.’”

When Sirleaf was in law school, husband-and-wife coaches Ashley Bond Beasley, J.D. ’16, and Benjamin Beasley, J.D. ’14, offered more of a tough-love mentoring style. “They didn’t sugarcoat, and they definitely made sure I had some tough skin,” she says. “There are still things I do to this day — or things I will not do — because of their coaching. They were always there to pick me up after a mistake.”

Mock Trial coach Annemarie Duerr, J.D. ’22, a UBalt Law adjunct professor, further helped her to build both her legal chops and her leadership skills, and Sirleaf went on to co-coach with her. Other mentors in her life have included her first boss, Shawn Bartley, as well as family law and immigration attorney Shari Hoidra, J.D. ’12. “She helped me learn to maneuver as a woman of color in the legal world,” Sirleaf says.

As Sirleaf leads students through the mock trial experience, she looks to help them find their authentic selves. When attorneys model themselves after classmates or TV characters, “it can come off as unnatural, not genuine,” she says. “I’m trying to help them find the attorney personality that fits them. That’s huge, especially for litigators.”

A launching pad

Nick Szokoly, J.D. ’03. knows from experience just how impactful a moot court mentorship can be.

Now a partner with Murphy Falcon Murphy, he started his first year as an evening student at UBalt Law while still finishing his undergrad degree. He tried out for the moot court consolidated competition, “and the professor who led it at the time, Byron L. Warnken, took an interest in me,” he says. “It changed the entire trajectory of my career.”

Warnken, who passed in 2022, taught him how to be a lawyer and a leader. “Everything I ever learned about how to practice law and run a law firm, I learned from Byron,” Szokoly says. Along with Warnken, faculty members Ernie Crowfoot and the late Richard “Dick” Bourne helped guide his path.

Now Szokoly is doing the same for others. As a moot court coach and mentor, he tells students that moot court can be a launching pad: “This is your opportunity to circulate with practicing lawyers and judges, to make relationships that can really make a difference in your life.”

It certainly did in Szokoly’s case. As he reflects on the impact that Warnken had on his career, he says, “I can’t think of a single outcome that would have been the same if it hadn’t been for Byron’s mentorship and moot court.”

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

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Daniella Prieshoff: Empathy and Advocacy for Immigrant Clients

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Juan Soto in Alumni Profiles, Alumni Profiles 2025

By Madeleine O’Neill

There were several inflection points that helped Daniella Prieshoff, J.D. ’12, become the passionate advocate for immigrant survivors of gender-based violence that she is today.

As an undergraduate, Prieshoff took an advocacy and literature class that focused on the legal rights afforded to immigrants and got her reading great civil-rights thinkers.

An internship with a Maryland legislator helped her decide to pursue a career as a lawyer.

And UBalt Law’s Saul Ewing Civil Advocacy Clinic honed Prieshoff’s litigation skills while allowing her to work on cases involving immigrants and migrant workers.

Now, Prieshoff is senior managing attorney at Tahirih Justice Center in Baltimore, a position that allows her to advocate for women and children who have experienced human trafficking, sexual assault, abuse and torture and are eligible for certain immigration protections. It’s a job that has become increasingly difficult during the current immigration crackdown.

Prieshoff’s clients are frightened that they are no longer safe in the United States, even under special programs for crime victims and other groups that have existed for decades. Some are too scared to leave their homes amid raids by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. And abusers are taking advantage of these fears, threatening to get victims deported if they don’t stay quiet, Prieshoff says.

“These clients are some of the bravest people I know,” she says. “Even though they’re afraid to access these resources and protections, they still insist on reporting crimes, on cooperating with police, on attending these court hearings, testifying in criminal hearings, and exposing their unstable status to the world.”

“They’re still doing that because they believe that they want to live in a safe community, and they want to help make sure other people do, too. So this climate of fear is not helping anybody,” she says.

That climate is particularly challenging for Prieshoff, a naturalized citizen who was born in Ecuador and lived all over the world as the daughter of a military dad. Prieshoff sees this as a double-edged sword: as a Spanish speaker who understands the immigration system, she feels a greater responsibility to serve. But the Trump administration has also targeted immigration attorneys and slashed funding to organizations that help immigrant communities, making the work feel more daunting than ever.

Prieshoff takes comfort in seeing the results of her work. When a client gets a work permit and can finally support her child, or receives asylum after a drawn-out legal battle, it shows that justice is still available.

Prieshoff’s dedication to her clients shows in court, says Lisa Dornell, a former immigration judge and mentor to Prieshoff.

“I could tell she really cared,” Dornell says. “Especially when you’re dealing with such a vulnerable population, as a judge, you want to be certain that the clients are receiving quality advocacy, and she definitely provided that.”

Earlier in her career, Prieshoff worked as a senior attorney at Kids in Need of Defense, representing unaccompanied children in the immigration system, and at Farmworker Legal Services of Michigan. It was there that she realized how many migrant farm workers are subjected to sexual harassment and assault. Being undocumented put them at even greater risk for exploitation, she says. She began seeking a way to do more immigration-related work that encompassed the social dynamics she was seeing.

“I realized that immigration was so crucial to a farm worker or any undocumented person accessing stability and safety, and I realized also that sexual assault was so much more prevalent than we realize,” she says. “I was looking for a way to contribute more.”

The search led her back to the Tahirih Justice Center, and to Baltimore, in 2021. As senior managing attorney, she now has an opportunity to mentor others, like Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow Kimberly Mariano. Mariano said Prieshoff is attentive to her mental health, given the difficult subject matter they deal with at the Tahirih Center, and she allows Mariano to learn on her own while never letting her feel alone in the work.

“The way Danielle mentors specifically, I’ve definitely grown and learned to be more confident in my skills,” Mariano says. “I think a lot of people need that, as well. Having confidence in the work you’re doing, building relationships with other people, and also having confidence in your ability to advocate for your clients.”

Even with the challenges of the new presidential administration, Prieshoff says she sees herself continuing to do this work “for the foreseeable future.”

“Right now it’s a much more challenging time, but I do see that there’s a lot more to fight for and there’s a lot more to believe in that really keeps you motivated,” she says. “I feel like I am really needed, and I feel like I can still contribute more.”

Madeleine O’Neill is a writer based in Baltimore.