The UBalt School of Law held its 27th Annual Awards Ceremony on April 23, 2023 at the Angelos Law Center. The Hon. Mary Ellen Barbera, former chief judge, Maryland Court of Appeals, was the keynote speaker.
Leaders of the Latin American Students Association, Karen Cedeno and Angely Luna, accepted the SBA Award for Outstanding Service to UBalt Law by a Student Organization.
For the Class of 2023, Joshua Gehret was the valedictorian, and Samantha Stephey was the salutatorian. Alona Del Rosario received the 2023 Pro Bono Challenge Award.
Akil Holmes, Jessica Sims and Amy Werner received the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) Outstanding Student-Attorney Team Award for their work with the Innocence Project Clinic. Alona Del Rosario received the CLEA Outstanding Externship Award.
The Clinical Excellence Award went to Sebastian M. Peñafiel-Garcia, for his work in the Mediation Clinic for Families.
The Student Bar Association recognized Prof. Jaime Lee with the James May Faculty Award and Prof. Marta Baffy with the Staff Mentoring Award. The SBA recognized Ashlyn Woods as the 2023 Student of Merit.
Ronald Weich, who has served as dean of The University of Baltimore School of Law since 2012, announced his decision to step down by the end of the 2023-2024 academic year.
“I am proud of my long tenure as dean of this outstanding law school. I have loved every minute of my deanship, but it is time for the school to enjoy a change in leadership while I pursue new professional opportunities,” Weich says. “In the coming months, I remain committed to keeping the law school strong and on track for its next chapter.”
Among the highlights of Weich’s 11-year tenure are the 2013 opening of the landmark John and Frances Angelos Law Center, with keynote speeches by then-Vice President Joe Biden and Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Other distinguished speakers Weich brought to the law school over the years have included Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, and many leaders of the Maryland bench and bar.
During Weich’s tenure, the highly regarded Clinical Law Program saw continued success, rising to a ranking of 6th in the nation for 2024 by U.S. News & World Report. The law school continues to be recognized by preLaw magazine for the diversity of its student population and its success in preparing students for public interest law careers.
“It takes a special combination of strength, wisdom and humility to run a law school,” says UBalt President Kurt L. Schmoke, who previously served as dean of Howard University Law School. “The law is often subject to sweeping change, sometimes in the face of social disorder and systemic injustices. A great law school like ours requires leadership that can thrive in the face of that constant need to improve the landscape.
“Throughout his tenure, Ron Weich exhibited these qualities in abundance, and our students, professors, alumni, clients and friends were the beneficiaries. We thank him for his service and wish him all the best in the next chapter of his life.”
Weich says he is extremely proud of the faculty and staff at the School of Law. “Among other accomplishments, they kept the school running without interruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, pivoting swiftly to remote education when that was a public health imperative. We have happily resumed in-person classes and events, but we also are designing a number of online classes to provide more flexibility to students while maintaining the strong sense of community and shared purpose that makes our law school special,” he says.
After a nationwide downturn in law school enrollments following the 2008 recession, the School of Law bounced back under Weich’s leadership. “Our school now enjoys stable enrollment, a sturdy budget and a healthy relationship with the central university. We also have very loyal alumni, many of whom support the school financially,” says Weich.
“With their help, we have established new clinics and centers, such as the Center for Criminal Justice Reform. And perhaps the best measure of our success is the extent to which School of Law graduates secure jobs and contribute to the civic life of Baltimore, the State of Maryland and beyond.”
Plans are under way to celebrate Weich’s service later this academic year. The University will conduct a national search for Weich’s successor, with the goal of having a new dean in place by Summer 2024.
Three legal professionals have joined the law school in senior administrative roles.
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Michelle Gunter came to UBalt Law in January 2023 as assistant dean of admissions and enrollment management with a decade of experience in higher education. Directly before joining UBalt Law, Gunter was the assistant dean of admissions at Oklahoma City University School of Law, where she created a high school summer pipeline program.
Earlier in her career, Gunter was a recruitment coordinator for her alma mater, Texas A&M University School of Law. She later became the director of admissions and recruitment management for the University of North Carolina School of Law.
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Aubrey Edwards-Luce became executive director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC) in July 2023. A zealous advocate for children, youth and families, Edwards-Luce most recently served as vice president of child welfare and youth justice at First Focus on Children, a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families the priority in federal policy and budget decisions. She has more than 15 years of experience working with and alongside children and families at risk or already court-involved.
In 2020, Edwards-Luce launched the Child Welfare and Race Equity Collaborative, which brings together federal policy strategists and lived-experience experts with a focus on transforming the child welfare system into an anti-racist system that supports providing children and families with the freedom to thrive in their homes and communities.
She has a master’s degree in social work and a Juris Doctor, both from St. Louis School of Law.
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Patrice Wedderburn is the new executive director of the Fannie Angelos Program for Academic Excellence. Before joining the School of Law in September 2023, she served as associate counsel in the Office of Legal Counsel for Baltimore City Public Schools, where she represented the school system in special education and related matters and provided advice and counsel to senior staff and school administrators on a variety of school legal issues.
Prior to working for City Schools, Wedderburn served as an assistant attorney general in the Public Safety Division with the D.C. Office of the Attorney General. In this role, she represented the District in the D.C. Superior Court’s Family Division in juvenile delinquency, status offense, civil commitment and guardianship matters. She also worked as a staff attorney at Advocates for Justice and Education, the district’s federally funded Parent Training and Information Center. There, she represented parents and students in special education, school discipline and other education-related matters.
Wedderburn received her B.A. in Politics, with a concentration in poverty studies, from Washington & Lee University. She received her Master of Social Work degree from Boston College and her J.D. from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law.
Prof. Michael J. Hayes was named chair of the Maryland Public Employee Relations Board by Gov. Wes Moore in August.
Hayes most recently served as attorney/advisor to the chair of the National Labor Relations Board. Earlier in his career, he served for nearly four years as director and deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.
He joined the University of Baltimore law faculty in 1998 and has taught courses in labor law, collective bargaining, employment law, employment discrimination, torts, negotiation and other lawyering skills.
The Public Employee Relations Act established the Public Employee Relations Board, which oversees collective bargaining activities for certain public employees in Maryland. The act repeals the State Labor Relations Board, the State Higher Education Labor Relations Board, and the Public School Labor Relations Board, consolidating their duties under the new board.
The Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts(CFCC) has earned the 2023 Impact of the Year Award from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ). This accolade is a tribute to CFCC’s exceptional efforts in rethinking,reimagining, and redefining justice for children and families, according to the NCJFCJ. The award was presented in July.
“The NCJFCJ is proud to recognize CFCC’s dedication to redefining justice for children and families with programs that are making a profound difference in the lives of those they serve,” said NCJFCJ President Judge Gayl Branum Carr. “It is truly commendable. We applaud the organization for advancing the NCJFCJ’s vision of a society where every family and child has access to fair, equal, effective, and timely justice.”
“We are honored to receive this award in recognition of the years we have spent working with Baltimore’s most vulnerable youth and their families to increase their engagement in school,” said CFCC Faculty Director Shanta Trivedi, referring specifically to CFCC’s Truancy Court Program. “We are grateful for the opportunity to work closely with the judiciary and collectively brainstorm ways to minimize harms caused by legal system interaction. We look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with the community and bench to support families in Baltimore and beyond.”
Prof. Neha Lall, director of externships at the University of Baltimore School of Law, has been selected as a 2023-24 Bellow Scholar for her research project, Paid Externships as a Tool to Advance Student Equity and Autonomy. The new class of five Bellow Scholars made their first presentations at the AALS Clinical Conference in San Francisco in April.
The American Association of Law Schools (AALS) Section on Clinical Legal Education’s Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest (aka the Bellow Scholars Program) selects a new cohort of law professors every two years to recognize and support innovative empirical research proposals designed to promote economic and social justice.
The Bellow Scholars Program recognizes and supports the research projects that reflect the ideals of Prof. Gary Bellow, a pioneering founder of modern clinical legal education. Lall’s project was unanimously selected by the committee, according to AALS, because it is an excellent example of this type of scholarship.
Lall’s research studies UBalt Law’s new paid externship program, which launched in the fall of 2022. Even though the ABA lifted the prohibition on paid externships in 2016, many in the legal academy remain concerned about whether the educational value of field placement courses can be maintained when students are being paid. UBalt Law lifted the ban on paid externships after considerable debate, deciding that the policy was limiting opportunities and disparately affecting students who needed paid employment.
“Instead of speculating about what will happen if we allow paid externships, it’s time to gather data to see what happens when we allow pay on a wide scale,” says Lall. “UBalt Law has a diverse student body and large externship program, with over 60 percent of its students receiving compensation. We are an ideal institution to carry out this study.”
Lall analyzes, from a student perspective, how students are factoring pay into their externship placement decision-making process, which students are benefiting from pay, and how those benefits have affected the quality of their overall educational experience.
This data will advance national conversations about paid externships in legal education, Lall notes. “Traditional pathways into the legal profession do not work for many of today’s students, who carry a significant debt load and simply cannot afford to work for free,” she says. “If we want to have a diverse profession, we need to make it financially feasible for law students to get the experience they need.”
The Daily Record newspaper has named Dean Ronald Weich to its 2023 listing of Influential Marylanders.
Fifty-two Influential Marylanders were selected by the editors of newspaper for their significant contributions to their respective fields and for their leadership in Maryland in the following areas: civic leadership, communications, education, finance, freestyle, general business, health care, law, philanthropy, real estate and technology.
Weich has been dean of the law school since 2012, following a lengthy career in government in which he served as an assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration, and as chief counsel to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
If you ask Michelle McGeogh, J.D. ’07, why she does so much pro bono work, she has a quick answer.
“There are a lot of reasons why I do pro bono work, but to me the harder question is, why would anyone not do pro bono work?,” McGeogh says. “It’s fairly obvious that there’s unequal access to justice in our community, and across the country, and across the world.”
McGeogh is married with two daughters, but the Baltimore lawyer said integrating pro bono work into her 16-year career as an attorney has helped keep her grounded. Her parents are U.S. Army veterans and medical doctors, so service was part of her life from a young age.
Recently she brought her young daughter to court to observe a sentence modification hearing for a pro bono client who had received a life sentence. And pro bono work is often a big part of everyday conversations with her family, she says.
McGeogh was named co-chair this year of Maryland Legal Aid’s Equal Justice Council. That’s just a year after joining the board of directors of the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service. She is just one of the graduates of UBalt Law who are devoting much of their careers to advancing the cause of equity in our justice system.
“I went to law school to make a difference,” she says, “and it’s really pro bono work that allows me to make an impact.”
McGeogh is a partner at Ballard Spahr, where she focuses on real estate and construction litigation and employment law. She praises the firm for allowing all pro bono work to count toward attorneys’ billable hours budget, with no cap. “In short, pro bono work is treated like billable work at Ballard Spahr,” she said.
“I think there’s a trend toward more firms offering policies like that,” she explains. “Every law student I interview will ask about the pro bono program. I’d like to see other firms follow suit. It’s a recruiting tool.”
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As champions of pro bono, McGeogh, along with UBalt Law alumnae Susan Francis, J.D. ’11, and Vicki Schultz, J.D. ’89 recognize the importance of attorneys giving their time and talent to those in need.
Schultz is executive director of Maryland Legal Aid, the largest provider of free legal services in Maryland, with 12 offices around the state.
“It’s very important that people have representation,” she says. “When they don’t, there are often dire consequences. They may lose their home. They may end up homeless. They may not be able to eat. They may lose their jobs. When you step in as a pro bono lawyer, you can help someone meet their most basic needs.”
“If the legal system is only is going to work for those who have money to hire an attorney, then it really goes to the heart of the credibility of our justice system,” says Francis, who is executive director of Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service. “It diminishes our system of justice, and as attorneys and legal services providers, that’s what we seek: an equitable judicial system.”
According to the Maryland Access to Justice Commission, there are over 10,000 unserved low-income clients in need in our state for every 1½ legal services attorneys, Schultz says. Maryland is listed as one of the better performing states in the nation.
“Pro bono is hugely important,” Schultz says. “There is an incredible need for civil legal aid for people who can’t afford a lawyer.”
The disparity is huge, and, although some pro bono lawyers are giving their time and talent, many other Maryland attorneys volunteer little or not at all. “I think if everyone chipped in a bit more, we would get closer to meeting that need,” McGeogh says.
According to Francis, McGeogh is an example to firm partners and associates about prioritizing pro bono while excelling in your career. “Michelle, despite her very successful and busy career, makes time to do pro bono herself, mentors numerous associates in her firm to do pro bono, and consistently provides her limited time and numerous talents to further the important work of the MVLS board,” Francis says.
Pro bono advocates say that time constraints are one of the reasons attorneys don’t donate more of their time. Pro bono work is included in the code of ethics for Maryland lawyers, but many don’t prioritize it. The Maryland Pro Bono Resource Center, in partnership with the Maryland State Bar Association, has issued a Pro Bono Call to Action, with a simple signup form to encourage lawyers to give their time.
There are plenty of ways for a lawyer to give back. And the benefits of volunteering are also abundant. McGeogh, Schultz and Francis all say heartfelt appreciation from clients is a real motivator for pro bono attorneys to continue volunteering their time.
And the experience one can get is hard to match in the legal field. “I think doing pro bono work makes you a better lawyer,” McGeogh says. “You can take on pro bono matters as a very junior lawyer and get to take the lead on it.”
Francis noted one recent example, where a new assoicate in a large firm had the opportunity to argue a pro bono case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. After the argument, this associate was approached by a partner in the firm, who was seeking advice because the partner hadn’t argued before that court before. “It was great experience for the associate,” says Francis, “and it helped her build recognition within the firm.”
But for McGeogh and her fellow UBalt Law alumni, the best reward remains serving neighbors while contributing to the justice system they are working to improve.
“You’re not necessarily changing the world,” McGeogh says, “but it’s one little step toward making the world a little more fair for someone else.”
In 1844 Macon B. Allen was the first Black lawyer was admitted to the state bar of Maine, and that same year he was unable to practice simply due to the color of his skin. Undaunted, Allen moved to Massachusetts to begin practicing, and eventually became the first Black American appointed to a judicial position. It would take four decades for Maryland to follow suit and admit a Black man, Everett J. Waring, to the state bar.
UBalt Law’s February Law Forum symposium, “Blazing the Trail: Maryland’s First Black Lawyers and the Legacy They Built,” explored this history. The event brought together a panel of distinguished legal professionals to discuss Maryland’s early Black lawyers and the challenges they faced in gaining admission to the bar, as well as obstacles still in existence for Black lawyers seeking bar admission and judgeships.
UBalt Law Prof. Jose Anderson and the Hon. Sidney Butcher, associate judge on the District Court of Anne Arundel County, moderated the discussions, to both honor the legacy and imagine the future for Black lawyers in Maryland.
Panelists include author and Texas attorney John Browning; Maryland lawyer Domonique Flowers; the Hon. Lynn Stewart Mays, associate judge on the Circuit Court of Baltimore City; and UBalt Law alumna the Hon. Pamila Brown, J.D. ’79, administrative judge of the Howard County District Court.
