Loyola NLG Hosts Dis-Orientation!

Loyola NLG is holding a Dis-Orientation this Saturday, February 26, from 9:30 am - 3:00 pm.  It will be held in Room 344.

This event is catered toward forward thinkers who are concerned that the whole picture as a future community-minded lawyer won’t be taught in a classroom. Whether NLG members or not, interested students from all 4 Louisiana law schools are welcome to attend.

Please email Elizabeth Benki ebenki@gmail.com with any questions.

AGENDA

9:30 am      -        10:00 am    Coffee and Beignets

Come by for fresh beignets and coffee before the day begins!

10:00 am    -        10:30 am    Presidential Introduction                                
NLG Louisiana Chapter President Carol Kolinchak and NLG Loyola Chapter President Sarah Omojola

Carol and Sarah will welcome attendees and provide introductions to the day.

10:30 am    -        12:00 pm    Surviving Law School Panel and Discussion
Andrea Armstrong, Johanna Kalb, and John Adcock

Struggling with law school?  Classes?  Exams? Holding on to the hard-fought beliefs that brought you to law school in the first place? With some time for venting and some time for sharing practical strategies and tips for making it through school without losing yourself in the process, panelists will provide a critical review of the law school experience with room to share your perspectives in your law school school career.

12:00 pm    -        1:00 pm      Lunch (provided)
Let’s do lunch.  It’s on us.

1:00 pm      -        2:00 pm      Private Practice: Nuts and Bolts
Sara V. Pic, John Adcock, and Judson Mitchell

There is not one path to a career in public interest or social justice lawyering. Whether you start your own practice or perhaps your own organization, this panel is for you! A panel of social justice lawyers who started up their own practices will discuss the nitty gritty of the work that they do, how they got there, and how they keep themselves afloat while maintaining their drives to be public interest attorneys.

2:00 pm      -        3:00 pm      Louisiana Legal Issues
Robert Lancaster, Davida Finger, and Carol Kolinchak

This panel will introduce students to a variety of public interest jobs, projects and organizations in Louisiana. Some students may have switched interests after a year or two of law school, but don’t know what legal challenges Louisianans face. This panel paints a picture of the social justice landscape in terms of ongoing work, gaps in services, and opportunities for soon-to-be graduates.

3:00 pm      &      beyond       Mardi Gras!

If you are an out of town guest, we can give you information on when parades roll and where!

SPEAKER BIOS

CAROL KOLINCHAK

As Legal Director, Carol drives the litigation strategies of JJPL.  Since beginning to practice law, Carol has spent her career representing people who most need her.  For almost 20 years, she has been a zealous representative for indigent defendants at the trial level in both state and federal court, primarily in capital cases, including a number of juveniles facing either the death penalty or life without parole.  Carol has also been involved in a number of cases involving the protection and preservation of the culture of New Orleans, including most recently representing the New Orleans Social Aid and Pleasure Club Task Force in a lawsuit against the City of New Orleans over excessive parade permit fees in post-Katrina New Orleans.  Carol currently serves on the Board of Directors for The Roots of Music, Resurrection After Exoneration and Project Rising Sun.  Carol is a 1993 graduate of Northeastern University Law School in Boston and has been a member of the Louisiana Bar since 1993.

SARAH OMOJOLA

After graduating from LSU in 2007, Sarah Omojola taught high school English in the Recovery School District for two years. She experienced firsthand the inequalities that plague the New Orleans public education system and how these disparities influence and interfere with the post-storm recovery process. In 2009, Sarah enrolled in Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. As a law student and president of Loyola-NLG, she is committed to social justice issues and, after graduation, would like to practice international human rights law for a not-too-modest living.

ANDREA ARMSTRONG

Professor Armstrong joined the Loyola Law School faculty in 2010. Her research and teaching interests include criminal procedure, criminal law, civil rights, domestic and international human rights, law and poverty, and race and the law. Professor Armstrong is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where she completed her M.P.A. in International Relations.

Prior to law school, Professor Armstrong researched regional conflict dynamics at the Center on International Cooperation at NYU and transitional justice strategies at the International Center for Transitional Justice. She has also examined conflict prevention for the United Nations Department of Political Affairs; the denial of citizenship in Central Asia and the Caucasus for the Commission on Human Security; and human rights/refugee protection for the International Rescue Committee. She has also taught policy modules on democratization at the Junior Summer Institute at Princeton University.

After law school, Professor Armstrong served as a clerk for the Honorable Helen G. Berrigan of the United States Eastern District of Louisiana. She also litigated prisoners’ rights issues, among others, as a Thomas Emerson fellow with David Rosen and Associates in New Haven, CT. She is admitted to practice in Connecticut, New York and Louisiana state courts, as well as the U.S. District Court of Connecticut and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

JOHANNA KALB

Professor Kalb joined the Loyola Law School faculty in 2008.  Her research and teaching interests include civil procedure, constitutional law, federal courts, national security law, comparative law, and law and development.
Professor Kalb is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies where she completed her M.A. in International Relations with a focus on African Studies. 

While in law school, she served as Submissions Editor for the Yale Journal of International Law and as Articles Editor for the Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal.  She was also a member of the Complex Federal Litigation Clinic, the Criminal Defense Clinic, and the Hurricane Law Project.  Working under the direction of Professor Neal K. Katyal of the Georgetown University Law Center, Professor Kalb was a member of the legal team that successfully challenged the use of military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006). 

After law school, Professor Kalb served as a clerk for the Honorable E. Grady Jolly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Ellen Segal Huvelle of the District Court of the District of Columbia.  She is admitted to practice in the State of Mississippi.

SARA V. PIC

Sara V. Pic was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She received her BA from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and her JD from the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts. Sara was working as a public interest attorney in Boston in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina and the resulting federal flood ripped through New Orleans. She decided to move back to her hometown in March 2007 to contribute to the rebuilding of the city. Sara currently is Litigation Director at Health Law Advocates of Louisiana, a new nonprofit dedicated to health care justice. Prior to this position, she worked for two years at Mental Health Advocacy Service, representing children in state's custody with emotional and behavioral issues. She was also an Equal Justice Works Katrina AmeriCorps Attorney through The Pro Bono Project in 2007. In addition to Sara’s advocacy work, she is a staff writer with Antigravity, a New Orleans music and culture magazine.

JOHN ADCOCK

John Adcock is a public interest lawyer in private practice in New Orleans.  After a year as a second grade teacher and five years defending people facing the death penalty in Louisiana and Mississippi, he went to law school at LSU.  Upon graduating and passing the bar in 2006, he worked as a public defender and then went into private practice in June 2009.  His practice is devoted primarily to civil rights, immigration, and criminal defense.

JUDSON MITCHELL

Prof. Mitchell received a B.A. in Political Science from Louisiana State University in 1991, graduating Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. After receiving his Juris Doctor from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU in 1994, he was Staff Attorney at the New Orleans Pro Bono Project. Prof. Mitchell came to Loyola in 1997 to direct the Law Clinic's Homeless Outreach Program. He also now directs the Pro Bono Program for law students. Prof. Mitchell's teaching experience includes clinical seminars in general criminal defense, DWI defense, and prosecution.

Prof. Mitchell's areas of legal specialty are criminal defense, civil liberties, and homelessness. He is also interested in the application of internet technology to law practice, having written a number of software programs for law school clinics and non-profit agencies.

ROBERT LANCASTER

Robert Lancaster joined the LSU faculty and was appointed director of LSU Law's Clinical Legal Education Program in Fall 2008. He was previously a Clinical Professor of Law at Indiana University School of Law -Indianapolis from 2001-08 where he taught in the Civil Practice Clinic as well as the Judicial Externship Program, Lawyering Practice, and a course exploring wrongful convictions titled Convicting the Innocent. Lancaster taught in the Criminal Justice Defense Clinic as a Practitioner-in-Residence at the Washington School of Law, American University in Washington, D.C. from 2000-01. Lancaster received his B.A. in Philosophy at Millsaps College and his J.D. at Tulane Law School. He was named a Robert M. Cover Clinical Teaching Fellow from 1997-2000 at Yale Law School. Prior to teaching, Lancaster represented death row inmates in state and federal habeas proceedings.

Before joining the faculty at LSU, Lancaster was director of the Indiana University Chinese Law Summer Program at Renmin University School of Law in Beijing. He was also the faculty director of the China Trial Advocacy Institute—a rule of law and human rights project headquartered in Beijing and funded by the Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor of the United States Department of State.

Lancaster serves on the Board of Governors for the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT)—a community of progressive law teachers working for justice, diversity and academic excellence. He also serves locally on the Pro Bono Committee of the Baton Rouge Bar Association, the Access to Justice Committee of the Louisiana State Bar Association, the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Mental Health Advocacy Service, and on the Executive Board of the American Association of Law Schools Section on Poverty Law.

DAVIDA FINGER

Davida Finger joined the Loyola Law School Clinic in 2006 to work with the Katrina Clinic. She now teaches the Community Justice Clinic and the Law & Poverty course. In collaboration with community organizations, Professor Finger has worked extensively on disaster-related cases and policy matters to improve government accountability in rebuilding and on distribution of disaster funds. Prior to joining the clinical faculty at Loyola, she practiced law in Seattle focusing on consumer, land use, and human rights cases.

During 2008-09, Professor Finger was a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School and an “Effective Leadership” fellow with Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy in its inaugural program for emerging Louisiana leaders. She is also a 2009 teaching fellow with the Neighborhood Partnership Network’s first capacity college in New Orleans designed to develop community members’ advocacy and organizing skills. Seattle University Law School named her an inspiring alum in 2007.

While in law school, Davida was the founding Editor in Chief of the Seattle Journal for Social Justice and Associate Editor on the Seattle University Law Review. At graduation, she received the Faculty Scholar Award for excellence in high academic achievement and substantial service to the law school community.