The College of Law team of Casey Draskovich L’26, Rachel Hawk L’26, Dannah Henderson L’26, and Madison Marriott L’27 reached the semifinal round of the Shark Beach Showdown Trial Competition.
Marriott also won Best Advocate for the quarterfinal round of the competition.
The team was coached by Tania Rivera Bullard L’25, Tyler Jefferies L’21, and Lisa Musto L’25.
“The team’s accomplishments are particularly impressive given that the 24 teams in the competition represent some of the country’s best advocacy programs. Moreover, the team was comprised entirely of JDinteractive hybrid online students,” said Professor Todd Berger, Director of Advocacy Programs.
The Shark Beach Showdown is an annual national invitational mock trial competition hosted by Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Syracuse University Newhouse School of Public Communications alumnus Joe Rosen ’95 taught a 2-credit law class on Legal & Business Principles in Sports and Entertainment.
Students also heard from a diverse group of guest speakers, including:
Greg Goodfried, Creative Artists Agency digital media pioneer
Trisha Ananiades, Senior VP of Business & Legal Affairs at BBC Studios
Shawna Benfield L’09, Associate Principal Counsel for Walt Disney;
Dan Martens, General Counsel of the LA Dodgers
Paige Randolph, an entertainment and digital media attorney in Los Angeles.
Rosen is the Managing Member of Brown & Rosen, LLC, a corporate, sports, and entertainment law firm in Boston, MA, and also serves as an agent and advisor to professional and amateur baseball players. Rosen took the students on a tour of Dodger Stadium, where they met with Martens in a small group session Q&A.
Syracuse Law students experienced a behind-the-scenes tour of Dodger Stadium and a presentation by Dan Martens, General Counsel of the LA Dodgers, thanks to instructor Joe Rosen G’95.
The College of Law’s Asian Pacific American Law Student Association (APALSA) recently held its annual alumni panel. The panelists spoke about their legal careers, skills that were of most help as they began their practice, and gained insight into what employers are looking for in today’s job market.
The alumni participants were:
Jean Cha L’02, Cha Law Ethics, Founder and Attorney
Mark O’Brien L’14, Chief Deputy Clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Abigail Ramos ’21, L’25
Pete Su L’94, Partner, Radlo & Su LLP
Peony Teo L’24, Associate, Skarzynski Marick & Black LLP
Syracuse University College of Law now offers the nation’s first joint J.D. and M.S. in Sport Analytics program in conjunction with the Syracuse University David B. Falk College of Sport. The joint program, to be offered starting the Fall 2026 semester, allows College of Law students to earn their J.D. and M.S. concurrently, typically graduating in three years and at no cost beyond that of the J.D.
College of Law on campus students entering their second year can apply for the J.D./M.S., the College of Law’s 13th joint program.
The master’s degree requires 36 credits. A total of 15 credits from the sport analytics program can be counted toward the J.D. Further, six designated law credits will count toward both the J.D. and the M.S. electives. Law students enrolled in the joint JD/M.S. must take 72 unique law credits and 30 unique M.S. credits. Therefore, obtaining the joint J.D./M.S. requires completing 102 total credit hours.
“This is a program that only Syracuse can offer. Our College of Law and the Falk College of Sport are literally next door to each other, and that proximity translates into a truly integrated curriculum. No other law school in the country can pair a J.D. with a world-class sport analytics program under one roof,” said College of Law Dean Terence J. Lau L’98.
The joint J.D./M.S. is designed for law students interested in working in the front office of sports teams, the legal departments of sports leagues, sports agents, sports gambling companies, and others involved in sports.
“Being able to combine a law degree with a master’s degree in sport analytics provides our law students with an advanced credential that will set them apart when entering the workforce,” said College of Law Professor Todd Berger.
The M.S. follows Falk College’s established graduate Sport Analytics curriculum that emphasizes Applied Statistics, Econometrics, Databases and Machine Learning, R/Python Programming, Sport Gambling Analytics, and Visualization, among other disciplines.
“There is increasing demand for professionals who can navigate the complex intersection of law, analytics, and sport business. The combined J.D./M.S. degree prepares graduates to meet this demand by equipping them with both legal acumen and advanced quantitative skills these roles increasingly require,” said Rodney J. Paul, Ph.D., Professor and Chair in the Department of Sport Analytics at the Syracuse University David B. Falk College of Sport.
“Analytics has been largely popularized in the sport industry, but it has the ability to impact many other industries. Based on my personal background as a sport lawyer, bringing analytics into the study of law is a natural extension for Falk College of Sport. But it is also an incredibly valuable tool for practicing attorneys and even judges to better understand trends and precedents in the law and to predict probable outcomes of cases,” said David B. Falk ’72, Syracuse University Life Trustee and Founder & CEO, Falk Associates Management Enterprises.
Graduates will be uniquely positioned for roles in compliance, regulation, governance, player representation, sport betting and gaming law, collective bargaining, and analytical decision-making across professional teams, leagues, sportsbooks, and regulatory agencies.
Professor Keith Bybee spoke with the National Journal for an article on how Presidential civility has changed after the death of former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
“Stepping forward even a few terms, it looks very much like a different Republican Party,” said Bybee, author of How Civility Works. Bybee, director of the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University, sees Trump’s latest outburst as both a case of “strategic incivility”—changing the subject away from the war and the economy—and a “deeper effort to redefine what constitutes the baseline of respect in our public life.”
“He is seeking to gerrymander the boundaries of polite society,” said Bybee.
Professor Katherine Macfarlane is a presenter at the Disability Rights Bar Association Annual Baltimore Conference on March 27. She is speaking on the Disability Rights and Higher Education session.
Macfarlane, Director of the College of Law’s Disability Law and Policy Program, will discuss her article, The Higher Education Accommodation Mistake, which appears in the Georgetown Law Journal.
The College of Law’s Black Law Student Association (BLSA) Trial Team advanced to the national semifinal round and a third-place finish at the Constance Baker Motley Mock Trial Competition.
The team is comprised of Nicole Boadu L’26, Dia Bolton L’26, Kayzjah Charles L’26, and Johnnie Nichales Conner IV L’26.
The team was coached by the Hon. John F. Boyd II L’16, Douglas Bullock L’19, Tatiana Vaz L’25, and William M.X. Wolfe L’16.
“This marks the highest finish ever for a BLSA team in program history—an extraordinary accomplishment that reflects the team’s talent, preparation, and determination. It also continues a remarkable run of success, with our BLSA team advancing to the national round in nine of the past ten years,” said Professor Todd Berger, Director of Advocacy Programs.
Where better to learn about international tax law than Switzerland? Its prominence in global taxation comes from a combination of low tax rates, financial privacy, and political stability, which has long attracted multinational corporations and wealthy individuals. With a sophisticated financial sector, favorable tax treaties, and a highly developed business environment, Switzerland is a hub for international wealth management and corporate structuring, making it a powerful influence in the field of international tax law.
In March, 25 students from Syracuse University College of Law got an inside look as they traveled to Zurich to take part in a three-day course, The Evolving Role of International Tax, Transparency and Tax Equalization, led by Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law Craig Boise and Marnin J. Michaels G’96, L’96, a partner at global law firm Baker McKenzie Zurich, known for its high-end, cross-border corporate, finance, and tax expertise.
“Throughout this trip, students realized just how critical tax law is because taxes are one cost that every company, everywhere, has, and is always trying to reduce,” says Boise, who practiced tax law before entering academia. “This experience gave students insight into why tax planning is so important to how companies structure themselves around the world and how many corporate decisions are actually driven by taxes and tax laws.”
Open to on-campus and hybrid online JDinteractive (JDi) students, the course offered presentations from a prestigious slate of Swiss-based tax attorneys, government officials, and corporate experts brought together through Michaels’s extensive professional network. Topics included tax treaties, cross-border business structures, trade issues, trust and wealth planning, and the renewed interest, particularly in the U.S., in tariffs.
“What stayed with me most was a presentation by Pablo Bentes, a partner at Baker McKenzie, on the convergence of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions,” says Omar Ismael Nuno L’27. “What made it so impactful was the way he explained that there are no longer isolated policy tools but those that increasingly work together as revenue generating and geopolitical instruments. That really changed the way I think about international legal systems because it showed how economic policy, cross-border regulation, and global power can all intersect.”
The group was hosted by Baker McKenzie and also visited Bank Vontobel, a leader in private banking and investment service with global presence and vast expertise in wealth management services.
One of the three days was spent in Liechtenstein, where students visited Kaiser Partner, a family-owned financial service group and private bank specializing in wealth management, family office services, trusts, fund administration, and investment advice.
Students also had time to experience the people, sites, and culture of Switzerland. This is the third time Syracuse Law has offered a course on international tax law outside the U.S. with this being the largest group to date, a testament to its popularity. Olivia Roberson L’27 was most impressed by the long global reach of Syracuse Law.
“Marnin Michaels truly exemplifies that there are no boundaries for us as law students, as he went to Syracuse Law and now works at Baker McKenzie in Zurich,” she says. “This shows that our opportunities are endless, and our legal careers can bring us anywhere in the world.”
Crandall Melvin Professor of Law Shubha Ghosh recently participated in the Missouri Law Review “The Defend Trade Secrets Act at 10” symposium.
Ghosh, Director of the Syracuse Intellectual Property Law Institute, was a Commentor during the first paper session which questioned the power of the Defense Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) through the lens of reverse engineering restrictions, examined the circuit split over pleading standards for trade secret litigation, and analyzed how the readily-ascertainable bar to trade secrecy should be interpreted under the DTSA.
