Archive for 'School News'

Honorees in the Photo (from left to right): Judge Beatrice Butchko, Alexandra Bach Lagos, Esq. and Laura K. Wendell, Esq.

The FIU Women’s Law Society hosted its Networking Event Celebrating Women in Law on Nov. 1, 2012 at Kork Wine & Cheese in downtown Miami.

The Women’s Legal Society, which strives to connect and motivate future women lawyers to excel within the legal field, honored Judge Beatrice Butchko and Alexandra Bach Lagos, Esq. for their outstanding accomplishments in the legal community and constant support of FIU Women’s Law Society.

Judge Butchko presides over civil cases in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida and Alexandra Bach Lagos, Esq. is the immediate past president of Miami-Dade Florida Association for Women Lawyers.

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On Tuesday, Nov. 6, the FIU College of Law hosted the panel discussion “Gender Issues in the Legal Profession: Global Perspectives.” with distinguished international women judges and scholars.

The panel, moderated by Judge Judith C. Chirlin, (Ret.) Los Angeles Superior Court, focused on gender issues in the legal profession.

Discussing the most pressing issues in their respective countries, were featured panelist Professor Kerri L. Stone (U.S.), Florida International University College of Law; Judge Svetlana Filincova (The Republic of Moldova), Supreme Court of Justice; Judge Sofia Waqar Khattak (Pakistan), District & Sessions Judge, Peshawar High Court; Judge Gift Dorothy Mtendere Makanje (The Republic of Malawi), Senior Resident Magistrate for the Malawi Judiciary; Judge Thokozani Agnes Nyirenda-Patemba (The Republic of Malawi), Assistant Registrar High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal; and Judge Ivana Hrdlickova, Ph.D. (The Czech Republic), Appellate Court in the Czech Republic, Legal Expert of Council of Europe.

“The panel could not have been more timely and important due to the plight and challenges of women worldwide who seek equality in employment and in public life, as well as meaningful protection under the law in their private lives,” said Professor Kerri L. Stone. “To have had the perspective of any one of our guests would have been incredibly interesting and valuable; to be a party to the discourse among all of them was a privilege,” she said.

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In the November 2012 issue of the National Jurist, Florida International University College of Law was recognized as the third most diverse law school in the U.S., with a final score of 8.1 – a score well above the median of 4.83.

To determine the most diverse ABA-accredited law schools, the magazine broke down each school into six categories – percentage of minority faculty; percentage of black students; percentage of Asian and Hawaiian students; percentage of Hispanic students; percentage of American Indian students and other minorities; and percentage of Caucasian students. Each category was then assigned a score from one to 10. A school that matched the U.S. national average for any race received a seven, and a school that was 30 percent or higher than the average received a 10. Editors noted that the final outcome of the study is a listing of schools “that have a breadth of races both in student bodies and faculty.”

Of the law schools ranked in the honor roll for diversity, FIU Law boasts the highest percentage of Hispanic students (39%), as well as the highest faculty diversity score (10.0).

“This diversity does not happen by accident.  We are part of a university that embraces diversity in its many forms.  We understand the positive impact a diverse environment can have not only on minority students, but on the student body as a whole.  We remain committed to this founding principle, and through first-generation scholarships, we will work to ensure that all our students have access to opportunities,” said Dean R. Alexander Acosta.

The FIU Law Center for Professionalism and Ethics and the College of Education recently teamed up with the Miami-Dade County Public Schools Ethics Advisory Committee to lead a one-day summit for students, parents, teachers and employees from Miami-Dade County’s public school system.

The goal of the summit was “to advance a continued dialog that offers a panoply of tools that assist students with developing the necessary skills and high ethical standards for use as they participate in solving problems on a local, statewide, and global scale.”

Providing an overview of cooperative and effective community approaches, the session leaders covered topics ranging from ethics in government to the ethical leadership and decision making in education.

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In a recent article by the Daily Business Review, Deborah C. Espana features FIU Law’s Scholarship Program, which provides an opportunity for first-generation law students.

Fla. Law School Scholarship Program Helps First-Generation Lawyers

Daily Business Review – By Deborah C. Espana

Juan Enjamio is a first-generation lawyer. His parents came to the United States in 1970 without a college education but with the idea that higher education was the key for success.

Enjamio, Miami managing partner of Hunton & Williams, is one of 13 South Florida managing partners whose firms have committed to fund scholarships for first-generation law students to give them a chance at higher education at Florida International University College of Law.

“I’m a first-generation college graduate, and at an individual level I want other young people to have the same opportunity that I had,” Enjamio said. “Part of the reason why we are committed to help fund this scholarship is because many of our attorneys are also first-generation lawyers, and the firm values providing the same opportunity to young people in our community.”

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The College of Law is delighted to welcome back J. Eloy Anzola.  Anzola joined our College as a Visiting Researcher from May to December 2010 and will be continuing his research with us again beginning August 15 until mid-February, 2013.  He is a Venezuelan trained lawyer (Universidad Católica Andres Bello) who completed his education in the University of Paris (Admissible au Doctorat de l’Université, Droit Civil), Cambridge University (Introduction to English Law) and Yale Law School (LL.M). Anzola worked as an associate in New York (Whitman, Ransom & Coulson) and in Caracas (Travieso, Evans, Ponte & Rosales). He participated in the foundation d’Empaire Reyna Anzola & Bermúdez and later in the foundation of Anzola Raffalli y Rodríguez, both law firms in Caracas, Venezuela.

Anzola is dedicated to national and international arbitration, as an arbitrator. He has been researching the origins and development of arbitration in Spanish America and now wants to focus his research on arbitration during the XIX Century.  He has participated as an arbitrator in proceedings under the Rules of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) of the AAA, the Centro Empresarial de Conciliación y Arbitraje (CEDCA) and the Centro de Arbitraje de la Cámara de Caracas (CACC). In several of those arbitrations he has been sole arbitrator or Chairman of the Arbitral Panel. He is member of the list of arbitrators of the ICDR, CEDCA, CACC and the Corte de Arbitraje de Madrid. He is fluent in Spanish, English and French.

Dear members of the FIU community.

FIU is closed as of 7 p.m. tonight through Monday due to Tropical Storm Isaac, which is expected to affect our area starting early on Sunday. All FIU classes are cancelled as of 7 p.m. Saturday and continuing through Monday, August 27. We will open for regular operations on Tuesday, unless you are notified otherwise.

The Wolfsonian-FIU, located on Miami Beach, is closed as of this afternoon, due to a broken water main unrelated to the storm.

Resident students who have family in South Florida are encouraged to go home today, if possible, before travel conditions deteriorate. Essential employees should remain alert and be ready to return to work when conditions allow. This is the time to complete your storm preparations and go to the location where you will stay through the storm.

Stay safe and look for additional updates.

http://dem.fiu.edu/

Saturday, August 25, 2012 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

On the heels of President Obama’s enactment of the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) program, FIU’s College of Law in conjunction with PICO, Americans for Immigrant Justice, S.W.E.R. (Students Working for Equal Rights), and the Florida Immigrant Coalition, will host a day long clinic to help young persons to apply for deferred action.

Local attorneys, volunteers, along with students and recent law school graduates will volunteer to help DACA-seeking young adults determine if they qualify for the program and assist them in filling out the DACA applications.

This is the second DACA workshop with two more planned for South Florida in the upcoming weeks- one in Homestead and another in Little Havana.

The event will be held on Saturday, Aug. 25, from 8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m. at the College of Law’s Atrium.

DACA grants temporary two-year residency permits to undocumented young adults less than 30 years of age as of June 15. It is aimed at qualifying immigrants who came to the U.S. on or before June 2007 and who were 16 or younger at the time of their arrival. Among other qualifications for the program, the young adults must be free of serious criminal convictions, be enrolled in or have completed high school, or have served in the U.S. military.

This summer in conjunction with the College of Education, FIU Law hosted the  2^nd Annual Math and Civics Summer Institute for Liberty City 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th graders.

The Math & Civics Summer Institute is the result of the great response received by an FIU Law Forum held in 2011 entitled Quality Education as a Constitutional Right.

The Math & Civics Summer Institute aims to build a new national model for transforming disenfranchised young people into educational change agents in their communities. Using innovative techniques, the institute gets elementary students excited about learning mathematics and teaches them youth rhetorical and civic skills.

Thank you to the following FIU Law students and administrative staff who taught within and organized the program:

• Tesha Allison
• Alejandro Carrasco
• Andrea Ferranti
• Myriam Girado
• Emilio Lorenzo
• Desmond Meade
• Sofia Mitchell
• Virginie Plawecki-Illescas
• Brianna Reid
• Stefan Sinn

Florida International University College of Law is delighted to announce Pablo Van Thienen’s arrival this week as a visiting researcher from Argentina.  Van Thienen has a law degree from the University of Buenos Aires Law School and a master’s degree in Corporate Law from Austral University, Argentina.  He has also completed two specialization programs, one in Corporate Accounting & Finance from Austral University, and the other in Management for Small & Medium Businesses from I.A.E. Business School, Argentina.  He is the Director of CEDEF, a law school in Buenos Aires.

Van Thienen plans to do research for one year on the legal, contractual and economic incentives behind the compensation package of top management as members of boards of directors and how these incentives may create serious conflicts between the individual interests of managers and shareholders.

Pablo Van Thienen’s office is in RDB 2063, email: cedef@educedef.com.ar