Morrison Cohen presented Sydney Clarke 3L with the inaugural Morrison Cohen Summer Award at the 14th Annual BALLSA Celebration on February 28. Representing the firm were Steven Cooperman, Chair and Co-Managing Partner, Jenni Eastman, Chief Operating Officer, and Bobby Codjoe, Director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion and former Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Cardozo Law School.
“It was Morrison Cohen’s wish to provide summer funding to a current third-year student,” Codjoe said in his remarks. “We know how important bar prep is for most law school graduates. Those courses and living expenses often require taking on additional student loan debt, and we wanted to ease that financial pressure.”
He said Clarke embodies the law firm’s values of excellence, collegiality, inclusion, engagement and forward thinking.
Morrison Cohen, a New York-based firm, serves clients across 12 major sectors, including real estate, private equity, luxury brands and health and wellness, and consistently ranks as one of the nation’s top midsize firms.
“On behalf of Morrison Cohen, I would like to congratulate Sydney for her outstanding achievements and leadership; she truly embodies our values, and we are honored to present her with this award,” said Y. David Scharf, Morrison Cohen’s chair and co-managing partner.
Cooperman added that “we believe in supporting students who exhibit academic excellence and community engagement. The Morrison Cohen Summer Award reflects our commitment to shaping the future of our profession.”
Clarke, vice president of the Black Law Student Association, is the first-place winner of the Cardozo intra-school negotiation competition, an ambassador of the Gates Scholars Program and the problem editor of the Cardozo Alternative Dispute Resolution Competition Honor Society.
“As a law student, balancing classes, extracurricular activities and life outside of school, thinking about expenses for the summer can be overwhelming,” Clarke said. “Receiving this award was such an incredible gift that provides me with a much-needed safety net. I am thankful to my classmates who nominated me and to those at Morrison Cohen who showed their dedication to diversity, equity and inclusion by investing in me.”
In addition to the Morrison Cohen Summer Award, the annual dinner, which is held by the Black, Asian & Latino Law Students Associations Alumni (BALLSA), included the presentation of the BALLSA Scholarship Awards to four students, valuing $5,000 each. The students who received the BALLSA Scholarship Award were Rachel Barkley 3L, Tatiana Sterling 3L, Samantha Sánchez 2L and Lizzy (Adesimisola) Tijani 3L.
The mission of the BALLSA alumni group is to create more equitable spaces at Cardozo and in the legal and business professions.
Photo by Eryc Perez de Tagle