Students in Adjunct Professor Christine Bator’s seminar on Energy, Economics and the Environment recently toured Oyster Creek, the country’s oldest operating nuclear power plant, located in Forked River, NJ. In a typical comment, one student described the field experience as “a great learning experience where we got a sense for how nuclear energy has played a role in NJ’s recent history and how/why it should play a greater role in the future.” Professor Bator (front row, 2nd from left) is a former Commissioner of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.

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Courtney Raphael ’12 has received the Leslie Ehrlich Award from Executive Women of New Jersey. The special award is given to an outstanding candidate pursuing a degree in law. Raphael is in the joint J.D./M.A. in criminal justice program. Class of 2010 students Toni Kelich and Florence Sinofsky have received Graduate Merit Scholarships from EWNJ, which describes the annual scholarship program as an investment in New Jersey’s economy. “The scholarship recipients,” said EWNJ, “represent the best and brightest of traditional and non-traditional, female, graduate level degree students at New Jersey colleges and universities.”

Megan Bornstein, Jenelle Boyd, Sandra Gonzalez, and Kelly Levy, all members of the Class of 2010, have been awarded scholarships by the Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey.

The New Jersey State Bar Foundation has awarded Kelly Levy ’10 the Wallace Vail Scholarship, Dante Simone ’10 the Labor Law Scholarship, and Kyle Smiddie ’10 the New Jersey State Bar Foundation Scholarship.

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Michael J. Vincenti ’09 took First Prize and Paloma Robbins ’10 Second Prize in the Nathan Burkan Memorial Competition at the law school. Sponsored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the competition is intended to increase interest in the law of copyright and to improve the style of legal writing. Vincenti’s essay was titled “Copyright as Cultural Property.” Robbins wrote on the topic “One Planet–One Law: Setting a New Standard for Implementing the DMCA According to World Policies — A Comparative Analysis of the ‘Safe Harbor’ Provision.”

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Israel Burns ’11 and Jessica Rivera ’11 presented a mock appellate argument before a panel of judges and an audience as part of the Rutgers–Newark campus Constitution Day program on September 16. The program, “Does race-conscious decision-making by an employer to remedy disparate impact, deny equal protection under the law?” was subtitled, “An Affirmative Action narrative through the lens of Ricci v. DeStefano,” referring to the case in which white New Haven, CT, firefighters sued their city on the grounds they were unfairly denied promotions because of their race. Burns argued for DeStefano and Rivera for Ricci. Professor Bernard Bell presented a summary of the case and he and Professor James Pope heard the students’ arguments.

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The Labor and Employment Law Society is sponsoring two teams in the law school’s first-ever competition in the ABA LEL Trial Advocacy Competition. The competition was established by the Labor and Employment Law Section of the ABA to expose law students to litigation experience in the practice area. Interested Rutgers students submitted writing samples anonymously and were selected based on criteria that included unity, logic, clarity, and cogency. Team members include Evelyn Inya-Agha ’10, Nicole Barna ’11, Chuck Pall ’11, Justin Fields ’11, Mackie Snee ’10, Dante Simone ’10, Paul Srivastava ’11, and Israel Burns ’11. Professor Alan Hyde agreed to be a faculty adviser to the effort and coaches are in the process of being identified, particularly among alumni practitioners. The first round will take place in New York on November 21 and 22. More information about the competition is available on the ABA site.

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Nine students from Rutgers School of Law–Newark are among the 27 recipients of graduate fellowships awarded by the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University for the 2009-2010 academic year. Each year Eagleton offers four competitive interdisciplinary fellowship programs that connect students in the university’s professional and graduate schools to the practice of politics through a required course and internship. The one-year fellowship is designed to add a hands-on understanding of politics and government to the student’s academic course of study. While continuing to pursue their degree, Eagleton Fellows take a weekly seminar in American politics during the fall semester and, in the spring, spend at least 15 hours a week in an office in the New Jersey legislature, the Governor’s Office, an executive agency, or other government office. They also undertake independent study, working with a faculty member from their school to understand the relationship between their academic studies and hands-on government experience. The law school’s new Eagleton Fellows are: Shawn P. Barnes ’10, Osato F. Chitou ’10, Joshua A. Greeley ’10, Patrick F. Lynott ’10, and Robert A. Vohden ’10, who have been awarded a Governor’s Executive Fellowship; Heather Nearpass ’10, who has been awarded a Harold and Reba Martin Fellowship; and Andrew Bolson ’10, Kyle Smiddie ’11, and Jewel McGowan-Watson ’10, who have been awarded a Henry J. Raimondo Fellowship.

Sarah Chambers ’10 is a New York City Bar Association Thurgood Marshall Fellow. The fellowship gives exceptional minority law students the opportunity to work with the association to advance civil rights and equal justice. She spent last summer working for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL. Chambers’ interest in community service dates back to high school. While an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, she volunteered in the West Philadelphia community as a member of Alpha Phi Omega, the national co-ed community service fraternity. Courses such as Women in Prison and Women and Health kindled her interest in advocating for women’s rights. Working after graduation as an investment analyst at MetLife Investments, she served on the Finance Committee of her local United Way and as president of the northern New Jersey alumni board of Inroads, which helps minorities who want to work in business. 

After her first year of law school, Chambers interned at the Essex County Office of the Public Defender, Juvenile Division. Meeting talented attorneys who clearly loved their job prompted her to explore other areas of public interest law. As a 2L she participated in the Rutgers Domestic Violence Advocacy Project and worked in the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, Appellate Division. Chambers was captain of the 2009 Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Team, which advanced to the semi-final round. That experience, together with a course in Sexual Orientation and the Law, confirmed her desire to become a civil rights attorney with a focus on gender and sexual orientation discrimination.