NYLS - Key Persons
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- Director, Oak Spring Farms LLP
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- Founder and President, Argent Ventures LLC
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- Policy Director
- Professor of Law / Policy Director, Wilf Impact Center for Public Interest Law
Andrew Scherer is a Professor, the Policy Director of the Wilf Impact Center for Public Interest Law, the Director of the Right to Counsel Project, and the Co-Director of the Housing Justice Leadership Institute. Professor Scherer currently directs the Housing Rights Clinic. He has also taught courses in land use, housing policy and law, and planning law.
For many years, Professor Scherer has played a prominent role in access to justice, housing policy, landlord-tenant law, and other public interest issues-locally, nationally, and internationally. He has been an advocate for the right to counsel in civil matters, particularly eviction proceedings, for over 35 years. Under Professor Scherer's direction, the Right to Counsel Project worked with the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition and others to pass legislation that established a right to counsel in eviction cases in 2017, making New York City the first jurisdiction in the United States to do so. Since 2017, at least 12 other localities and three states have established the right to counsel for tenants in eviction cases.
Earlier in his career, Professor Scherer spent 10 years as the Executive Director of Legal Services NYC (LS-NYC), the largest nonprofit exclusively devoted to providing civil legal services to low-income people in the United States, where he had worked in a variety of capacities for two decades. As Executive Director, he oversaw all aspects of the organization, including implementation of board policy, management, legal work supervision, and program development.
Professor Scherer is the author of the widely used treatise, Residential Landlord-Tenant Law in New York, published annually since 1996. He has also written numerous law review articles and other published works. Among many affiliations, Professor Scherer is a regular consultant to the federal Legal Services Corporation, the current Co-Chair of New York City Bar Association (NYCBA) Task Force on the Civil Right to Counsel, and a founding member of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel. He has also been a Senior Fellow at the New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, a Chair of the Executive Committee of the NYCBA, a member of the New York City Housing Court Advisory Council, and a consultant on housing rights to Displacement Solutions, an international nongovernmental organization.
Professor Scherer has taught at CUNY Law School; NYU Law School; Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Yangon University in Myanmar; and Bennington College. He is a frequent consultant to the media and has lectured widely in the United States, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Job Titles:
- Dean and President / Professor of Law
- Law School 's 16th Dean and President
Anthony W. Crowell is marking his 12th year as New York Law School's 16th Dean and President. He has served in the role since May 2012. He has taught state and local government law at NYLS since 2003.
As a first generation student and a longtime New York City public servant, Dean Crowell proudly reintroduced NYLS as New York's law school. His management philosophy is rooted in his experience as a senior executive in New York City government for more than a decade, where he served as Counselor to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Under the Dean's leadership, NYLS has repositioned itself as a law school for the 21st century lawyer and a leader in New York City and State government. It issued its first comprehensive Strategic Plan in 2013. The School's latest Strategic Plan reflects the new demands and opportunities confronting law schools and the profession as a result of the global pandemic and America's racial reckoning. NYLS also published an Institutional Diversity Plan; built an Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; adopted a dynamic and successful new curriculum-known as Think BIG-and is developing best in class academic and bar success programs.
Education
Harvard, Ph.D. 1987, J.D. 1978 cum laude, A.M. 1975, A.B. 1973 summa cum laude
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Founding Partner
Professor Leonard has held a variety of influential and activist positions in civic and legal organizations, including trustee of Lambda Legal, trustee of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City University of New York, and chair of the Section on Gay and Lesbian Legal Issues of the Association of American Law Schools. He is chair of the Corporate Compliance Committee and a trustee of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services of New York. He is also a board member of TENET Vocal Artists, an early music performing group based in New York City.
Professor Leonard received the prestigious 2005 Dan Bradley Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association in recognition of his significant contributions to the advance of LGBT rights under the law.
Education
Yale, J.D. 1976; Harvard-Radcliffe, A.B. 1973 magna cum laude
Job Titles:
- Director of the Library, Associate Dean, and Professor of Law
- Professor of Law Associate Dean for Information Services Director, the Mendik Library
Camille Broussard joined the New York Law School Library staff as head of reference services in 1991. She has been the director of the Library since 2008. Before coming to NYLS, she was the collection services and reference librarian at New York University Law Library, and attorney services librarian at the Boley Law Library, Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
Professor Broussard teaches an Advanced Legal Research seminar, research workshops, and database searching classes. As part of her teaching duties, she works with faculty members to integrate legal research skills and training into their course work. It is her firm belief that law students who see the contextual connection between the theory and the practice of law will be more prepared to engage completely in the practice of law. Incorporating research discussion and assignments into the substantive curriculum is a successful way to provide a contextualized learning experience. Many classes offered at NYLS include a research component that is taught in collaboration with the reference librarians.
Professor Broussard is also an active member of the professional law librarian community. She belongs to both the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) and the Law Library Association of Greater New York (LLAGNY), with focuses on legal research and social responsibilities of the profession. Recently, she chaired the AALL Awards Committee. She has also chaired the Law Library Journal and AALL Spectrum Editorial Advisory Boards, the Committee on Mentoring and Retention, and the Social Responsibilities Special Interest Section.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Managing Partner
Education
University of California, Hastings College of Law, J.D. 2005 cum laude; Yale University, B.A. 2000
Education
Albany Law School of Union University, J.D. 1995; Binghamton University, B.A. 1992
Professor Chang, who joined the NYLS faculty in 1983, brings his appreciation for intellectual development into the classroom.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Law
- Professor
David Simson joined New York Law School as an Associate Professor of Law in 2022. He teaches courses on constitutional law, race and the law, and civil rights law.
Professor Simson's scholarship analyzes the role of law in the production, maintenance, and dismantling of social hierarchies, with a focus on race and racial hierarchy. His work relies on both social science research as well as critical race approaches to law. His scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in the UCLA Law Review, Houston Law Review, Denver Law Review, William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, Michigan Law Review, and the edited book volume, Critical Race Judgments. His article, "Whiteness as Innocence," was selected as the Denver Law Review's 2018 Emerging Scholar Award winner.
Professor Simson joins NYLS after three years as an Acting Associate Professor at New York University School of Law. At NYU, he taught Lawyering, a full-year simulation-based course introducing first-year students to legal analysis, research, writing, client counseling, negotiation, and oral advocacy. Before joining NYU, he was the Greenberg Law Review Fellow at UCLA School of Law where he taught employment discrimination law and a self-designed seminar titled "Race, Social Psychology, and the Legal Process." After law school and before entering academia, he was a litigation associate in the Los Angeles and London offices of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
Professor Simson graduated from UCLA School of Law with a specialization in Critical Race Studies and received a B.S.B.A. in International Business from the University of Denver, where he was also a four-year letter winner and captain of the university's Men's Tennis Team.
Dean Crowell has also led the creation of new academic centers, institutes, and leadership programs that capitalize on New York City's fastest-growing job sectors, including those focused on financial services, technology and intellectual property, government and public interest, and in-house counsel and the business of law. Under Dean Crowell, NYLS became one of the first law schools to combine its academic planning and career development functions into a seamless unit, maximizing the student advising experience and driving more meaningful outcomes.
Consistent with Dean Crowell's belief in the importance of place-based learning, NYLS has dramatically expanded clinical and experiential learning programs. Under his leadership, NYLS established The Joe Plumeri Center for Social Justice and Economic Opportunity. This sophisticated, high-tech training center is home to NYLS's 20-plus clinics and experiential learning programs in the heart of Lower Manhattan. The School recently introduced a semester-long Washington, D.C. Honors Externship Program. NYLS also launched the Social Justice Hub, part of the Wilf Impact Center for Public Interest Law, which provides co-working space to four national legal advocacy nonprofits, and opportunities for students to engage on the frontlines of social change.
Having earned his J.D. as an evening student and while working full-time in Washington, D.C., Dean Crowell is deeply committed to the NYLS Evening Division and instituted its new NYLS Pro program which meets the needs of, and embraces the modern post-pandemic realities confronted by, today's ambitious working professionals.
For its efforts, NYLS has received top rankings and accolades in clinical and experiential learning, diversity and inclusion, and a host of legal specialty areas, including government and public policy, criminal law, immigration law, family law, and corporate law. Dean Crowell has been honored as Faculty Member of the Year by the NYLS Black Law Students Association. He is consistently named each year to the "Law Power 100" and "50 most influential people in academia" statewide lists by City & State New York. And, Crain's New York Business named him to its lists of "People to Watch in Higher Education" and "Notable LGBTQ Leaders and Executives."
In his prior role as Counselor to the Mayor, Dean Crowell was counsel to the Mayor, a senior management and policy advisor, as well as general counsel to the Office of the Mayor. For more than a decade in City Hall, he successfully managed a broad portfolio of legal, regulatory, legislative, governance, economic development, administrative, and operational matters focused on enhancing New York City's performance, competitiveness, accountability, and public integrity. He also worked on numerous civil rights and government-access initiatives affecting women, immigrants, and people with disabilities. Dean Crowell served as Executive Director, Counsel, or Commissioner of six city Charter Revision Commissions.
He was previously an Assistant Corporation Counsel in the New York City Law Department's Tax & Condemnation and Legal Counsel Divisions, working on an array of real property tax, eminent domain, and land use and zoning issues. In 2001, he was counsel to the city's Family Assistance Center, aiding families of 9/11 victims and directing the city's World Trade Center Death Certificate Program. Dean Crowell began his career at the International City/County Management Association in Washington, D.C., where he managed government affairs and policy. He also served as a Law Clerk at the State and Local Legal Center assisting in the preparation of amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in constitutional federalism cases.
Dean Crowell is a leader in advancing American legal education. He is a member of the Executive Committees of the Association of American Law Schools as well as the Board of Trustees of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities in New York. He also is the Founding President of the National Association of Standalone Graduate Schools.
Dean Crowell also is a highly visible leader in the New York City and State legal and civic communities. He is a Commissioner on the New York City Planning Commission. He is Chair of the New York State Independent Review Committee for Nominations to the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government. He serves on the Executive Committee (and was Chair for five years) of the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Public Library. He is a member of Board of Directors of the Citizens Union Foundation. And, he is a member of the New York City Bar Association's New York City Affairs Committee. He previously served on the Board of Directors of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and as a member of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board for nine years. Further, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Congressional Award Foundation in Washington D.C.
Dean Dizon has created programs and taught courses at all stages of the legal education experience, from pre-orientation to post-graduate bar preparation. He has helped thousands of students succeed in law school and on the bar exam. In recognition of this service, he received the California Western Student Bar Association's Excellence in Academic Advising Award in 2017 and the Brooklyn Law School Latin American Law Students Association's Faculty Award in 2021.
Dean Dizon is a prolific conference presenter and a mentor to many others in the national academic support community. He received the Association of Academic Support Educator's Guiding Light Award in 2019 in recognition of the knowledge and experience he brings to new colleagues. Dean Dizon was also the presenter of Quimbee's inaugural commercial course in contracts and Helix Bar Review's inaugural bar strategies lecture in civil procedure. In addition, he is also a business immigration law scholar, serving as co-author and co-editor of Immigration Law Service 2d, one of Westlaw's multivolume immigration law treatises. His practitioner publications and legal scholarship focus on immigration programs for entrepreneurs, investors, and small business owners.
Dean Dizon brings a wealth of academic support experience to NYLS. He was the Director of the Academic Support Program and Associate Professor of Academic Success at Brooklyn Law School (2018-2022), Assistant Dean for Academic Achievement at California Western School of Law (2014-2018), Assistant Director of the Academic Success Program and Visiting Assistant Professor of Academic Success at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University (2011-2014), and an Academic Support Consultant during his Kauffman Legal Research Fellowship at New York University School of Law (2010-2011).
Prior to law school teaching, Dean Dizon was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Business Law and Negotiation at Brooklyn College (2009-2010). He also served as a small group and individual tutor and curriculum developer for a major standardized test preparation company. And prior to entering legal education, Dean Dizon was an Associate in the New York office of global immigration firm Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen, & Loewy, LLP.
Dean Gewolb previously served as the Legislative Director of the New York City Council. In that capacity, he oversaw the Council's legislative, policy, and oversight work. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School, teaching State and Local Government and the Law of the City of New York.
Dean Gewolb holds two master's degrees and a doctorate in Higher and Postsecondary Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, where his scholarship focused on law school teaching and learning. He serves on a number of Boards, including the Alliance for Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Dean LaPiana has been a frequent speaker at continuing legal education events, including several conferences sponsored by the Real Property Trusts and Estates Law Section of the ABA and the Trusts and Estates Law Section of the New York State Bar Association, the Heckerling Institute, and the New York Estate Planning Institute. Since 1987, he has also been a regular participant in the New York University Law School Legal History Colloquium.
Dean Wofse brings a wealth of experience in developing and implementing academic and bar support programs for law students, educating law students about the path to licensure in New York and surrounding states, and teaching attorneys and faculty to grade practice bar exam essay and Multistate Performance Test (MPT) responses.
Prior to joining NYLS, Dean Wofse spent eight years as the National Director for Firm Initiatives and Senior Director for the Northeast at Themis Bar Review. She has presented and lectured regarding all facets of the Uniform Bar Exam, collaborated with academic success and bar support professionals, and advised thousands of law students and graduates as they navigated law school, bar exam preparation, and the path to a law license.
Before joining Themis Bar Review, Dean Wofse spent 18 years at BARBRI as the Northeast Regional Associate Director and Director of Legal Education where she developed innovative bar exam essay grading programs and lectured on the MPT. She is also an adjunct professor at St. John's Law, where she teaches Essay Writing Skills in the Advanced Contracts early bar preparation course. She has previously served as an adjunct professor at Hofstra Law and University of New Hampshire Law, and Bar Exam Expert at Touro Law Center in support of Academic Excellence and Bar Exam Success programs.
Job Titles:
- Joseph Solomon Distinguished Professor of Law, Emeritus
Edward A. Purcell Jr. is one of the nation's foremost authorities on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal judicial system. He first became interested in legal and constitutional issues while studying 20th-Century American intellectual history at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned his Ph.D. After receiving his law degree from Harvard Law School, he practiced for several years in New York City with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison while doing extensive pro bono work with The Legal Aid Society.
In addition to many scholarly articles, book chapters, and editorial opinion pieces, he has written five books: Antonin Scalia and American Constitutionalism; Originalism, Federalism, and the American Constitutional Enterprise; Brandeis and the Progressive Constitution; Litigation and Inequality; and The Crisis of Democratic Theory. His books and articles have won numerous prizes, including the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize, the Triennial Griswold Book Prize, the Triennial Coif Book Award, the Pelzer Prize, the American Quarterly "Best Article" award, and an American Bar Association Silver Gavel Certificate of Merit.
He served on the boards of the Community Law Offices of The Legal Aid Society, the American Society for Legal History, and the journal Continuity and Change, and he received the New York State Bar Association Pro Bono Service Recognition Award and the Outstanding Pro Bono Participation Award of The Legal Aid Society. He also chaired the Federal Courts Section of the Association of American Law Schools and served for many years on its Executive Committee, and currently serves on the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for Constitutional Studies at George Washington Law School. In 2013, he received the American Bar Foundation's Outstanding Scholar Award.
Education
New York University School of Law, J.D. 1993; Duke University, B.A. 1987
Education
University of KwaZulu-Natal, LL.B., B.A.; Columbia Law School, LL.M.
Education
University of Michigan, J.D. 1968, Ph.D. (Sociology) 1977; Woodrow Wilson Fellow; Fulbright Scholarship (1964-65); Kenyon College, B.A., 1964 summa cum laude
Education
Yale, J.D. 1982; Haverford, B.A. 1979 magna cum laude
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean and Vice President for Enrollment Management, Student Financial Services, and Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Associate Dean and Vice President, Enrollment Management Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
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- Associate Dean for Academic Planning and Career Development
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- Professor of Comparative Law / Co - Director, Center for International Law
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- Senior Director for Special Projects
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- Vice President for Institutional Operations and the NYLS Experience
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- John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, Emeritus
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- Vice Chair of the Board President
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- Trustee Professor of Law / Director, Center for Real Estate Studies
Gerald Korngold teaches Property, Real Estate Transactions, International Real Estate, Conservation Law and Policy Clinic, and Real Estate: Transactional Skills. Professor Korngold is the Director of the Center for Real Estate Studies. Prior to coming to New York Law School in 2008, he was Dean of Case Western Reserve University School of Law for nine years.
Professor Korngold has lectured nationally and internationally on land and property law issues and writes and teaches in the fields of property and real estate law. He is the author of Private Land Use Arrangements: Easements, Real Covenants, and Equitable Servitudes. He also co-authored two casebooks, Real Estate Transactions: Cases and Materials on Land Transfer, Development, and Finance as well as Cases and Text on Property, and he co-edited the book Property Stories. Additionally, Professor Korngold has published numerous other articles in law reviews and journals on numerous subjects. His recent articles cover subjects including the subprime and mortgage crisis, homeowners associations, international property issues, and conservation easements. His current research focuses on privatization of public land use regulation, real estate transactions, conservation easements, land value capture, and other issues.
Professor Korngold is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the American College of Real Estate Lawyers.
Job Titles:
- President and CEO, Vector Group Ltd
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- Vice President, Savills Studley
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- Professor of Law / Dean of Adjunct Faculty Engagement / Director, Center for Business and Financial Law
Professor of Law; Dean of Adjunct Faculty Engagement; Director, Center for Business and Financial Law; Director, Ronald H. Filler Institute for Financial Services Law
Howard S. Meyers joined the faculty of New York Law School as a visiting clinical professor in the fall semester 2004 to teach in the Securities Arbitration Clinic. Previously, he served as litigation associate at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP.
After law school, Professor Meyers served as a staff attorney in the Northeast Regional Office of the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Division of Enforcement, located in New York City. During his tenure with the SEC, he was responsible for investigating and litigating complex cases involving sales practice abuses committed by stockbrokers, fraudulent financing and Ponzi schemes, accounting fraud, and the sale of unregistered securities by various public companies. Prior to graduating from law school, Professor Meyers was a senior accountant at the international accounting firm of KPMG Peat Marwick. While at KPMG, he earned his certified public accountant license and was responsible for auditing the financial statements of several Fortune 500 companies and regional broker-dealers.
Among Professor Meyers's publications are "Recovering Unpaid Bonus Payments in Turbulent Times," published in the New York Law Journal; "Schedule D: Looking Behind the Numbers to Provide Better Client Service," published in The Trusted Professional; and "Finder's Fee Agreements: Pitfalls and Considerations," published in the New York Law Journal. He appeared as a guest commentator on CNBC and the BBC to discuss the SEC's investigation of WorldCom and its impact on the U.S. securities market, and on FOX News to discuss the Justice Department's indictment, trial, and conviction of Martha Stewart. He is quoted frequently in the financial press.
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Assistant Dean for Bar Success
Ilyse A. Wofse joined New York Law School as the Assistant Dean for Bar Success in January 2023. She is an expert in bar preparation and bar success, having spent more than 25 years holding senior positions at several national bar preparation firms and helping thousands of law graduates pass their bar exams.
Job Titles:
- Author and TV Anchor of "Conversations With Jim Zirin"
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- Associate Dean and Vice President for Institutional Advancement, Chief Development Officer
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- Vice Chair of the Board Former Partner
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- Senior Director of Institutional Research
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- Vice President of Human Resources
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- Vice Chairman of the Board
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- John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law / Director, Racial Justice Project
- John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, Emeritus
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- Joseph Solomon Distinguished Professor of Law, Emeritus
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- Associate Professor of Law
- Chairman of the Pedagogy Committee of the Law School Anti - Racism Consortium
- Professor
Justin Murray joined New York Law School as an Associate Professor of Law in 2019. He teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, constitutional law, and race, bias, and advocacy. He also co-directs NYLS's Criminal Justice Institute.
Professor Murray's scholarship focuses on prosecutorial discretion and on strategies for preventing and penalizing illegal conduct on the part of prosecutors and other criminal justice actors. His academic work has been published in a number of law journals, including the Harvard Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Fordham Law Review. His scholarship has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and by judges on other courts, and he received the Otto Walter Award for best article by a full-time faculty member from the NYLS faculty for his 2021 article, "Policing Procedural Error in the Lower Criminal Courts."
In addition, Professor Murray is Chair of the Pedagogy Committee of the Law School Anti-Racism Consortium, a member of the Advisory Board for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books, and a member of the leadership team of the Criminal Procedure Section of the Association of American Law Schools, among other institutional and service roles.
Professor Murray began his career as a clerk on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. After that, he spent four years as an appellate lawyer at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, followed by a year at the Consumer Fraud Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General's Office. He then left legal practice to serve as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he taught legal research and writing, before joining NYLS's faculty.
He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Dr. Sarah Murray, and their three children, David, Katelyn, and Luke.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Law Stephen J. Ellmann Dean for Clinical and Experiential Learning Co - Director, Housing Justice Leadership Institute
- Stephen J. Ellmann Dean of Clinical and Experiential Learning, Professor of Law
Kim Hawkins joined the New York Law School faculty in fall 2011 to teach Legal Practice. Prior to NYLS, she was Director of the Peter Cicchino Youth Project of the Urban Justice Center, one of the first organizations in the country to provide direct legal services to homeless and at-risk lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth.
From 1998 to 2002, Professor Hawkins taught at New York University School of Law in the Lawyering Program, a comprehensive first-year course in legal writing, advocacy, and research strategies. At New York University, she developed course pedagogy focused on experiential learning, placing students in simulated attorney roles to provide integrated exposure to the foundations of legal argument, negotiation, drafting, interviewing, and counseling.
Earlier in her career, Professor Hawkins was a staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society, where she represented clients in housing court, state supreme court, and at the appellate division. She was also a staff attorney at The Door's Legal Services Center, where she provided direct legal services to young people ages 12-21 in a broad range of legal areas including housing, immigration, welfare, family law, consumer law, and education.
Professor Hawkins has served on the Association of the Bar of the City of New York's Social Welfare Committee and the Committee on Sex and Law, of which she was chair.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Vice President of Business Development and Operations
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- Wallace Stevens Professor of Law / Director, Academic Initiatives / Co - Director, Initiative for Excellence in Law Teaching
- Wallace Stevens Professor of Law Director, Academic Initiatives Co - Director, Initiative for Excellence in Law Teaching Co - Advisor, Dispute Resolution Team
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- Assistant Dean for Development
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- Distinguished Chair in Immigration and Human Rights Law / Founder and Senior Advisor
- Distinguished Chair in Immigration and Human Rights Law Founder and Senior Advisor, Safe Passage Project
- Professor
- Trustee of the American Immigration Law Foundation
Lenni B. Benson has been teaching and writing in the field of immigration law since 1994. She is the Distinguished Chair of Immigration and Human Rights Law at New York Law School. She founded the Safe Passage Project, which recruits, trains, and mentors attorneys to assist unaccompanied youth who are facing deportation. Safe Passage Project began as an NYLS pro bono project/clinic and is now a nonprofit with a staff of over 40 professionals housed at NYLS that partners with the School's clinic. With more than 500 pro bono attorneys, Safe Passage Project is currently assisting over 1,000 unaccompanied minors in New York.
Professor Benson has won national awards for her pro bono leadership and excellence in immigration teaching. She has served as a member of several national task forces on the needs of migrant youth and has been a speaker for the federal government at national trainings. She also served as one of the founding steering committee members of the American Immigration Representation Project, formed in 2017, to expand pro bono representation of detained immigrants.
In 2012, she completed, with Russell Wheeler, a study of the immigration courts for the federal government's Administrative Conference of the United States. She served as the chair of the Immigration and Nationality Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York from 2012 to the end of 2014.
Professor Benson is an emeritus trustee of the American Immigration Law Foundation (now the American Immigration Council), is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and served on the board of the Center for Human and Constitutional Rights. Her co-authored book Immigration and Nationality Law: Problems and Strategies was published by LexisNexis in 2013 and a new edition was issued in December of 2019 by Carolina Academic Press. In addition to teaching at NYLS, she has also served as an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School.
Most recently, Professor Benson edited an academic volume of international essays with Professor Mary Crock of the University of Sydney entitled Protecting Migrant Children: In Search of Best Practice. She will prepare a new book for Elgar Press in its Advanced Legal Studies Series on U.S. Immigration Law that is expected to be published in early 2021.
Professor Benson teaches Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and several advanced seminars ranging from asylum to business immigration.
Education
New York University, LL.B. 1965, Root Tilden Fellow; Dartmouth, A.B. 1961
Education
Arizona State, J.D. 1983 cum laude, B.S. 1980 cum laude
Education
Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. 2010 magna cum laude; Harvard University, A.B. 2007 magna cum laude
Job Titles:
- Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Institutional Strategy General Counsel Faculty Director of Externship Programs
- Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Institutional Strategy, General Counsel (
Matt Gewolb is Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Institutional Strategy. In this role, he serves as the chief administrator of the Law School's academic program. He is responsible for the day-to-day budgeting, planning, and management functions for the academic program. He is also the Law School's General Counsel and works on significant institutional policy, legal, and strategic government affairs matters. He serves as Secretary to the Board of Trustees and directs the NYLS Externship program. He was Executive Director and Counsel for the 2018 New York City Charter Revision Commission.
Job Titles:
- Chief Compliance Officer
- Counsel
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- Co - Coordinator and Counsel (
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- Associate Dean and Registrar Dean of Students
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- Distinguished Professor of Tax Law Director, Graduate Tax Program
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- Chief of Building Operations and Security
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- John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law / Director, Racial Justice Project
- Professor
Penelope Andrews joined New York Law School in January 2019 and teaches constitutional law, torts, professional responsibility, and race and the law. She is also Director of NYLS's Racial Justice Project.
Professor Andrews began her teaching career at Australia's La Trobe University, where she taught for eight years, before moving to the City University of New York School of Law, where she taught public international law, gender and law, race and law, comparative law, and torts for 15 years. She has held visiting appointments at law schools across the U.S. and internationally and senior leadership posts, including serving as the first black Dean at the University of Cape Town Faculty of Law (2016-2018) and the first female Dean and President of Albany Law School (2012-2015).
Professor Andrews is active in international collaborative research and mentoring networks and committed to ensuring the relevance of law and society scholarship to global academic communities. She is an editor of the International Journal of Law in Context, the Human Rights and the Global Economy E-Journal, and the African Law E-Journal.
She's authored several books and articles focusing on comparative constitutional law, gender and racial equality, human rights, the judiciary, and legal education. She is working on a manuscript, Law, Politics and the #MeToo Movement (forthcoming 2023).
Professor Andrews' focus on the judiciary in South Africa seeks to bridge the divide between theory and practice. Her writing explores the transformation of the judiciary, particularly the appointment of female judges. She was a trainer with Judicial Institute for Africa, specializing in judicial opinion writing and communications skills. She also served as an Acting Judge of the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria for the 2018 third term and as an arbitrator in racial discrimination hearings in South Africa.
She has served on law school committees and the boards of public interest and human rights organizations, including the Africa Section of Human Rights Watch and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice. She recently served a two-year term as the President of the Law and Society Association. Currently, she serves as Chair of the Board of the Institute for African Women in Law and is a member of the National University of Ireland Galway's External Advisory Group on Gender Equality and the Advisory Committee of the South African Research Chair in Teaching and Learning at the University of Johannesburg.
Professor Andrews has received many awards, including an honorary degree from Franklin University in Switzerland in recognition of her work and commitment to social justice and human rights. She continues to host the South Africa Reading Group, which she co-founded with the late Professor Stephen Ellmann in 1994.
Professor Andrews is a regular commentator in the media on South African legal issues and racial justice matters.
Job Titles:
- Chief Marketing and Digital Strategy Officer / Vice President
Richard Chused is a prolific scholar and an expert on copyright law, property law and its history, family law, and gender and law in American history. He joined the New York Law School faculty in 2008 after spending 35 years teaching and writing at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. In 2004-05, he received a Senior Scholar Fulbright Grant to teach at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. From 2009 to 2011, he served on a Peer Review Committee that made recommendations on grant applications for the Fulbright Program in the Middle East. Professor Chused also is a member of various history and legal history associations. He served on the Board of Governors of the Society of American Law Teachers for 12 years and as its webmaster for 10.
Professor Chused has published numerous books, articles, and teaching texts on property, copyright, family law, and the legal history of both gender and property law. His book Gendered Law in American History, written with Professor Wendy Williams, his teaching partner of many years at Georgetown University Law Center, is a path-breaking teaching and resource text on the myriad ways gender has been used and often abused as a baseline for regulatory authority since the founding days of the republic. In recent years, he also has published award-winning essays on cutting-edge areas of copyright law and its relationship to art history.
Among Professor Chused's other writings are the definitive history of the famous landlord-tenant case Javins v. First National Realty Corporation; a history of Marini v. Ireland-the best known New Jersey landlord-tenant reform case; the third edition of his property textbook published by Carolina Academic Press; "Mt. Laurel: Hindsight is 20-20," an article contending that the famous land-use case was in some ways wrongly decided; and Euclid's Historical Imagery, a historical reappraisal of the racial and ethnic motivations underpinning the famous zoning case.
His wife, Elizabeth Langer, is an artist working in a variety of media, including oil and acrylic paint, collage, and printmaking. Their older son, Benjamin Chused, creates strategic marketing plans for Dell-EMC, Inc.; their younger son, Sam Langer, works in New York for an international public relations firm.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Law and Director of the Wilf Impact Center
- Professor of Law Director, Wilf Impact Center for Public Interest Law
Richard Marsico is Professor of Law and Director of the Wilf Impact Center for Public Interest Law at New York Law School. He is also the founder and a board member of The Charter High School for Law and Social Justice in the Bronx, New York, and he served as president of the Mamaroneck Union Free District School Board.
Professor Marsico is the author of law review articles about community reinvestment and home mortgage lending, clinical teaching, and special education, as well as two books-Special Education Law and Practice: Cases and Materials and Democratizing Capital: The History, Law, and Reform of the Community Reinvestment Act.
His interest and scholarship in areas of community reinvestment, not-for-profit law, civil rights law, and education law began as early as law school, where he served as the executive editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.
Following law school, Professor Marsico was a law clerk to Hon. Shirley Wohl Kram in the Southern District of New York. He then worked as an attorney in the Bronx neighborhood office of the civil division of The Legal Aid Society, where he specialized in class action litigation, housing court litigation, and representing tenant associations in rent strikes, repair cases, and urban homesteading efforts before he moved to NYLS, where he has been teaching since 1990.
At NYLS, Professor Marsico has taught numerous clinical courses, where he has supervised students representing clients on diverse issues including discrimination, community reinvestment, not-for-profit law, and political asylum. His scholarship has examined the Community Reinvestment Act and how the federal law promotes economic development in impoverished communities as well as ways to encourage banks to make loans to businesses and residents of these low-income neighborhoods without encouraging predatory lending at high interest rates and harsh terms. He has written and lectured extensively in the field, focusing on low-income and minority borrowers. His published research includes a survey on patterns of home mortgage lending to low-income and minority communities in the New York metropolitan area.
Now, as Director of the Wilf Impact Center, Professor Marsico is shaping the School's efforts to use law's constructive power as a tool of justice and social welfare.
Job Titles:
- Expert
- Professor
- Wallace Stevens Professor of Law, Emeritus
Richard K. Sherwin is an expert on the multiple connections that link law and culture, focusing in particular on legal storytelling and visual communication. Professor Sherwin gained nationwide attention with his well-received book, When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line between Law and Popular Culture, which explores the two-way street between law and popular culture. His most recent book, Visualizing Law in the Age of the Digital Baroque: Arabesques and Entanglements, examines the interpenetration of law and the visual throughout the history of modern culture up through the current era, which he calls the age of the digital baroque. His edited volumes include Law, Culture and Visual Studies, Popular Culture and Law, and A Cultural History of Law in the Modern Age.
In 2001, Professor Sherwin began teaching Visual Persuasion in the Law, the first course in the nation to teach students about the role, efficacy, and pitfalls of using visual evidence and visual advocacy in contemporary legal practice. Students in this course create short documentary films pertaining to a legal topic of their choosing. In 2005, he launched the Visual Persuasion Project website, the first and to date only website dedicated to showcasing best practices in the visual litigation field. The Project seeks to promote visual literacy among lawyers, judges, law students, and the lay public by cultivating a better understanding of visual communication practices.
In 2018, Professor Sherwin was elected Visiting Fellow at Fitzwilliam College and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at Cambridge University. He received a Fulbright Award in 2014, and was appointed the Fulbright Canada Visiting Research Chair in Law and Literature at McGill University under the auspices of McGill Law School and the Institute for the Public Life of Art and Ideas where he was in residence during the spring 2014 semester. He received a Humanities Research Centre Fellowship and served as Visiting Research Fellow at the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, College of Arts and Social Sciences at Australia National University in Canberra, Australia during the summer of 2014.
A frequent public speaker both in the United States and abroad, Professor Sherwin is a regular commentator for television, radio, and print media on the relationship between law, culture, film, and digital media. His appearances include NBC's Today Show, Court TV, WNET, National Public Radio, RTE Radio 1 in Ireland, CKUT in Canada, and Jeremiah Zagar's highly acclaimed documentary film "Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart."
Rick Chung - Chief Legal Officer, SVP
Job Titles:
- General Counsel
- Senior Vice President
Job Titles:
- Professor of Labor and Employment Law, Emeritus / Editor, LGBT Law Notes
Education
Emory Law School, J.D.; Teachers College, Columbia University, Ed.D., Ed.M., M.A.; Cornell University, B.S.
Education
Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law, J.D. 1994 cum laude; Franklin and Marshall College, A.B. 1989 Phi Beta Kappa
Education
Harvard, J.D. 1979 cum laude; University of Wisconsin, Ph.D. 1968; University of Kansas, M.A. 1964; Rockhurst College, B.A. 1962
Education
New York University School of Law, J.D., 1978; University of Pennsylvania, B.A., 1972
Job Titles:
- Appointed Member of the New York Procurement Policy Board
- Founding Director of New York Law School 's Center for New York City Law
- Professor of Law / Director, Center for New York City Law / Editor, CityLaw, CityLand and CityRegs Newsletters
Professor Sandler left Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, where he was a partner, to join NYLS's faculty and head the new center, which he suggested should specialize in city government and its operations. He went on to create the structure for the CityLaw, CityLand, and CityRegs publications and events like CityLaw Breakfasts.
Professor Sandler came to NYLS after a long and distinguished career in public service, in addition to his years of private practice. During the early 1970s, when he worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan as the chief appellate attorney and chief of the Environmental Enforcement Unit, he was on the cutting edge of environmental law. His office's successful prosecution of Hudson River polluters led to the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act. Later, in the mid-1970s, as senior staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, he and his NYLS colleague David Schoenbrod headed the Urban Environmental Unit, winning a pivotal Clean Air Act case.
Professor Sandler channeled his commitment to public service to the municipal arena in 1981, when Mayor Edward Koch appointed him to the newly created position of special advisor to the mayor, where his environmental law experience helped revitalize the city's mass transit system. In 1986, he was appointed Department of Transportation commissioner and proceeded to reorganize the 8,000-person department with a program of maintenance and repair still in place today.
His decades of experience as a participant and observer of urban affairs have made him a familiar figure in New York City government circles, and the CityLaw Breakfasts, which have attracted many of the city's most influential people.
Professor Sandler is an appointed member of the New York Procurement Policy Board. He is the author of numerous publications on environmental law, transportation, and government issues. In 2003, Yale University Press released his book, Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government, written with Professor David Schoenbrod. His book, Jumpstart: Torts: Reading and Understanding Tort Cases, was published by Wolters Kluwer in 2012.
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean for Academic and Bar Success
Shane Dizon joined New York Law School in fall 2022. He is a nationally recognized expert in academic success and bar preparation, specializing in blended doctrinal and skills pedagogy as well as best practices in study resource creation and joint student-administration academic support initiatives.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Dean of Students
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Finance
Job Titles:
- Senior and Founding Partner
Susan J. Abraham joined the full-time faculty at New York Law School in 2003, after practicing law for 20 years. She began her career as a trial level public defender in New Jersey, and then moved to representing indigent clients in criminal appeals, appearing numerous times before the New Jersey Supreme Court. She later became a supervising attorney at the Office of the Appellate Defender in New York, where she maintained her own caseload, and supervised and trained volunteer lawyers from large firms on writing appellate briefs and crafting oral arguments. She has also represented clients on employment discrimination and other civil matters, and graded the criminal and constitutional law essays on the New Jersey Bar Exam.
Professor Abraham has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and has published poems in a number of literary journals, including The Paris Review, Poetry, Tikkun, and Penn Review, as well as having poems included in an anthology of lawyer/poets.
Professor Abraham teaches Evidence, Advanced Appellate Advocacy, Deposition Skills, and Restorative Justice, and served as the faculty advisor for the NYLS Moot Court Association for 13 years. More recently, she has been focusing on criminal justice reform, especially through applications of restorative justice. She has created and teaches restorative justice courses, is a trained Circle Facilitator and Peacemaker, and is the faculty advisor of the NYLS Restorative Justice Law Student Association. She has also commented on restorative justice and criminal justice issues at conferences, CLE panels, and in the media. In addition, she was a member of the transition team for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and has served on a number of Advisory Boards, including for the Restorative Justice Initiative, the New York Commission of Human Rights Restorative Justice Projects, and the NYLS Alternative Dispute Resolution Program. She also enjoys being a volunteer writing mentor for Girls Write Now.
Education
Columbia, LL.M. 1985, J.S.D. 1989; Boston College, J.D. 1981; Brandeis, B.A. 1975 summa cum laude
Education
University of Chicago Law School, J.D. 1968; Brown University, A.B. 1965 cum laude
Education
New York University School of Law, J.D. 1992; Yale, B.A. 1989 cum laude with distinction in the major
Education
Warren Wilson College, M.F.A., 1991; Rutgers Law School, J.D., 1983; Oberlin College, B.A., 1977
Education
University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D. 1977 cum laude (University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Editor); University of Pennsylvania, B.A. 1974 summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
Job Titles:
- Anniversary Professor of Law, Emeritus
- Professor
Job Titles:
- Chief Information Officer
Education
Cornell, J.D. 1980; Georgetown, B.S. 1977 cum laude
Education
Harvard, J.D. 1985 magna cum laude; Fordham, B.A. 1982 summa cum laude
Education
UCLA School of Law, J.D., 2013; University of Denver, B.S.B.A., 2010
Job Titles:
- Wallace Stevens Professor of Law / Director, Academic Initiatives / Co - Director, Initiative for Excellence in Law Teaching
- Wallace Stevens Professor of Law Director, Academic Initiatives Co - Director, Initiative for Excellence in Law Teaching Co - Advisor, Dispute Resolution Team
- Wallace Stevens Professor of Law, Emeritus
Job Titles:
- Dean of Faculty Rita and Joseph Solomon Professor of Wills, Trusts, and Estates
- Dean of Faculty Rita and Joseph Solomon Professor of Wills, Trusts, and Estates Director, Estate Planning Studies, Graduate Tax Program
William LaPiana, Dean of Faculty at New York Law School, joined the faculty in 1987, and he was named the Rita and Joseph Solomon Professor of Wills, Trusts, and Estates in 1993. His doctoral dissertation was published as Logic and Experience: The Origins of Modern American Legal Education. An analysis of the intellectual roots of the case method and of the reasons for its success, it is widely cited in discussions of legal education and, as Dean LaPiana notes, still sells enough copies to buy one average bottle of wine per year.
In 2012, Dean LaPiana published Inside Wills and Trusts: What Matters and Why, part of the "Inside" series of student study aids published by Wolters Kluwer. His other major publication is Drafting New York Wills and Related Documents, Fourth Edition, published by LexisNexis of which he is co-author with Professor Ira Mark Bloom.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Legal Research, Emeritus