Stein Center Events

April 28, 2022: "Subversive Lawyering" In October 2021, the Center on Race, Law, and Justice, and the Stein Center for Law and Ethics held a symposium together with the Fordham Law Review on what it means in the practice of law to be subversive. Practitioners and academics from across disciplines, from housing to criminal justice to legal education, came together to tease out this important question. The result was seven essays due to be published in the Fordham Law Review. The panel will include: Daniel Farbman (Assistant Professor, Boston College Law School), Eloise Lawrence (Assistant Clinical Professor, Harvard Law School; Deputy Faculty Director, Harvard Legal Aid Bureau), Zohra Ahmed ’13 (Assistant Professor, University of Georgia Law School), Doug Smith (Supervising Senior Attorney, Public Counsel), Russell Pearce (Edward & Marilyn Bellet Chair in Legal Ethics, Morality, & Religion, Fordham University School of Law), and Christina John (New Jersey Appellate Division Law Clerk) 

May 19-20, 2022: “New Ideas on Civil Access-to-Justice Reform: Where Do We Go from Here?” Fordham Law School will host the inaugural A2J Roundtable, at which invited academics will discuss ongoing research on civil access to justice. David Udell, executive director of the National Center for Access to Justice (NCAJ), and Fordham law professors Bruce Green and Julie Suk join with Elizabeth Chambliss (Univ. of S. Carolina), Tanina Rostain (Georgetown Univ.), Rebecca Sandefur (Ariz. State Univ.), and Lauren Sudeall (Georgia State Univ.) in organizing the annual Roundtables, which will rotate among their institutions. The Fordham roundtable is co-sponsored by the NCAJ, the law school's A2J Initiative and the Stein Center for Law and Ethics. For further information, please contact Bruce A. Green at [email protected].

October 15 - 16, 2021: Colloquium on Subversive Lawyering. The papers presented at this colloquium will be published in Volume 90 of the Fordham Law Review.

March 16, 2021: Ethical Issues in Crisis Lawyering were examined during a moderated panel discussion with “first responder” lawyers who contributed chapters to the book,  Crisis Lawyering: Effective Legal Advocacy in Emergency Situations (Brescia, Ray, co-editor; NYU Press 2021). Stein Chair, Bruce Green moderated the program with co-sponsors Ellen Yaroshefsky, Howard Lichtenstein Professor of Legal Ethics and Director of the Monroe H. Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics at Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law and Ray Brescia, Hon. Harold R. Tyler Chair in Law and Technology and Professor of Law at Albany Law School.  Watch a recording of the program.

February 22, 2021: Albany Law School Professor Ray Brescia virtually joined the NY Legal Ethics Roundtable to discuss his book, Crisis Lawyering: Effective Legal Advocacy in Emergency Situations (NYU Press 2021) and article, “Lessons from the Present: Three Crises and Their Potential Impact on the Legal Profession” (Hofstra Law Review, Feb. 25, 2021) available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3792987. The ethical challenges presented when advocating for and representing clients in crisis were examined. The participants discussed the ethical responsibility of lawyers to recommit to the critical role the legal profession must play to defend the rule of law as the nation grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, the civil rights reawakening and the crisis of democracy.

November 6, 2020: Mental Health and the Legal Profession Symposium in collaboration with the Center on Neuroscience and the Law, the Center on Race, Law and Justice, and the Fordham Law Review, this day-long symposium featured panel discussions on the mental health challenges facing law students and legal practitioners and the interplay of contemporary societal stresses, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic, racial and gender discrimination, and systemic injustices, concluding with an overview of academic and institutional responses.

October 9, 2020: Colloquium on The Judicial Role in Professional Regulation. The papers presented at this colloquium are published in the Fordham Law Review, Vol. 89  No. 4 (March 2021) available at http://fordhamlawreview.org/issuescategory/march-2021-vol-89-no-4/

September 9, 2020: Eilene Zimmerman joined the NY Ethics Roundtable to discuss her book, Smacked: A Story of White Collar Ambition, Addiction and Tragedy (Random House 2020), which recounts the tragic story of her former husband, a successful Silicon Valley lawyer, whose battle with anxiety and depression led to a descent into drug abuse, ultimately resulting in his death from an overdose. The Roundtable, co-sponsored by the Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics, considered the impacts of the culture of law school and law firm practice on mental wellness, what law schools can teach in ethics and professional responsibility classes to bolster mental wellbeing, and how firms and bar associations can best support lawyers’ experiencing mental health challenges.

2019 Events

February 26, 2019: Maurice Possley, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, discussed his experiences investigating the criminal process, his insights into its deficiencies, and thoughts about reform in connection with his book, Conviction at Any Cost: Prosecutorial Misconduct and the Pursuit of Michael Segal (Segal, 2019).

November 21, 2019: Benjamin H. Barton discussed his book, Fixing Law Schools, From Collapse to the Trump Bump and Beyond (NYU Press, December 2019), which details the challenges faced by American law schools over the past decade.   

October 24, 2019: The Fordham-Stein Prize was awarded to Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General of New York. Click here for event details and here for Stein Prize details.

October 11, 2019: Colloquium on Corporate Lawyers. The papers presented at this colloquium are published in the Fordham Law Review, Vol. 88  No. 5 (April 2020) available at http://fordhamlawreview.org/issuescategory/april-2020-vol-88-no-5/

June 10–11, 2019: Sixth Annual Criminal Justice Ethics Schmooze, co-sponsored by Brooklyn Law School, Cardozo Law School, Hofstra Law School’s Monroe H. Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics, New York Law School’s Institute for Professional Ethics, and Touro Law Center.

May 30–31, 2019: Tenth Annual Prescriptions for Criminal Justice Forensics Conference, presented by the ABA Criminal Justice Section in conjunction with the Stein Center.

April 2019: Fordham Law Review publication of articles from the October 2018 Stein Center colloquium, The Varied Roles, Regulation, and Professional Responsibilities of Government Lawyers (April 2019, Vol. 87 No. 5 available here).

March 12, 2019: Lonnie T. Brown discussed his biography of Ramsey Clark, Defending the Public’s Enemy: The Life and Legacy of Ramsey Clark  Click here for event details.

January 25, 2019: Second Annual Women’s Leadership Institute, co-sponsored by the Feerick Center for Social Justice. Click here for event details.