The Center for Public Service Law's annual Public Law Advocacy Week (P*LAW), held Jan. 26-29, featured panels focusing on disability rights, labor law, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration law, and more.
“This year's P*LAW programming brought hundreds of members of the Cardozo community together to confront crucial public interest issues,” said Alissa Bernstein, director of the Center for Public Service Law. “The Student Planning Team did a phenomenal job, leading discussions that tackled a number of complex and consequential topics. We are grateful to everyone who contributed, including the P*LAW Student Planning Team, the panelists, and the faculty and staff who helped make it possible to hold 11 P*LAW sessions in four days.”
During the “Documenting Atrocity: Medicine, Law, and Accountability in Conflict Zones” panel, organized by Cardozo 1L students Alex Nesmith and William Jaffe, lawyers and doctors discussed the systemic hurdles that come with helping clients and patients who have experienced mass atrocity, and how legal remedy alongside medical treatment are crucial to the healing process.
Dr. Hawthorne E. Smith, program director at the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture and a clinical associate professor in the NYU Department of Psychiatry, told law students that their work can be therapeutic to those they help, even if what they do is not therapy.
He emphasized that a common thread between lawyers and clinicians is to give their clients and patients the space to feel safe and empowered.
“Empowerment — not coming from an ‘expert’ standpoint of ‘I’m a lawyer, I’m a clinician, here is how we’re going to do this according to this protocol,’ even with protocol, we need to be flexible,” Dr. Smith said. “We need to have more of a collaborative stance with these folks, make them feel like we have a stake in this. It’s our job, but it’s their lives, and we need to respect that.”
Several Cardozo alumni were P*LAW panelists. They included Taylor Brown ’17, assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Bureau Office of the New York State Attorney General; Lynly Egyes ’09, legal director for the Transgender Law Center; and Jessie Shaw ’21, senior attorney with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. They were given the platform to share their insights and experiences in their chosen fields with the next generation of Cardozo lawyers.
Students played a key role in organizing and coordinating the week’s events. They developed panel themes, reached out to experts, and led and moderated discussions.
“I am so grateful to the student planners for facilitating interesting, important, and engaging programming during P*LAW,” said Zachary Dugan, assistant director of the Center for Public Service Law and Office of Career Services. “Their time and energy created a buzz around the school, and we look forward to their involvement — and new student planners, too — when P*LAW happens next year.”