Professor of Law Emeritus William C. Banks recently spoke with Politico for an article on the pending renewal of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). Enacted in 2015, CISA incentivizes businesses to share threat intelligence data with the federal government or other companies. It is set to expire in September.
Banks said that he thinks the law should be reauthorized but expressed doubt that the Trump administration would prioritize renewing it.
“The Trump administration is mostly dismantling pieces of government, not creating them or reauthorizing them,” Banks said, adding that some conservative voices believe the law “messes with the private sector.”
Banks is the founding director of Syracuse University’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, now known as the Institute for Security Policy and Law.
The College of Law’s annual Youth Law Day event recently brought more than 200 high school students from schools across Central New York to Dineen Hall for an introduction to the legal profession, learning about the role of attorneys in society, and how to chart a path to law school. The theme of the day was “Science and Technology in Law.”
Participating schools were Binghamton High School, Corcoran High School, the Public Service Leadership Academy at Fowler High School, Geneva High School, Jamesville-DeWitt High School, Marcellus High School, Nottingham High School, and Utica Proctor High School. This year’s program was coordinated by Professor Lauryn Gouldin, co-founder of the Syracuse Civics Initiative.
The welcome address of the day was delivered by the Hon. Brenda K. Sannes, Chief United States District Judge for the Northern District of New York. Students then heard from a panel of judges that featured the Hon. Anthony Brindisi, the Hon. Beth Coombe, the Hon. Ramón E. Rivera L’94, and the Hon. Staci Dennis Taylor L’14. Professor Nina Brown of the Newhouse School of Public Communications then lectured on Ownership and AI.
From left, the Hon. Anthony Brindisi, the Hon. Beth Coombe, the Hon. Staci Dennis Taylor L’14, the Hon. Ramón E. Rivera L’94, and Professor Suzette Melendez.
Before lunch, the students broke into groups to tackle a mock oral argument activity. This activity was led by current law students who gave them advice and feedback about oral argument and modeled the activity for them. While at lunch, students were able to network with faculty, alumni, and current law students.
Students then heard from a college admissions counselor who answered their questions about applying to law school, followed by a lecture called “The Life of a Criminal Case” by Gabriela Girona Wolfe L’16, Assistant Public Defender from the Northern District of New York.
Professor Lauryn Gouldin
The visiting students were then able to ask a panel of current Syracuse Law students about their path to law school, how to prepare for the LSAT, good study and test-taking habits, and more. The panel was moderated by 3L Jesse Elmer and featured 2L Jocelyn Anctil, 3L James Cameron, and 2L Jared Park.
Kimberly Wolf Price L’03, Chief Strategy & Diversity Officer at Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC, provided closing remarks.
Event sponsors were:
Syracuse University College of Law
Barclay Damon
Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC Law Firm
Bousquet Holstein
The Hon. Robert A. Katzmann Justice for All: Courts and the Community Initiative
Lexis Nexis
New York State Bar Association
The Onondaga County Bar Association
Syracuse Civics Initiative
Syracuse Student Bar Association
The Wladis Law Firm
Travis H.D. Lewin Advocacy Honor Society
United States District Court for the Northern District of New York
Professor Jenny Breen spoke with Newsday for the article “Trump Aims at Law Firms That
Opposed Him: Experts: Orders Designed To Tamp Down Dissent.”
“It’s very clear that he’s trying to raise the price of dissent, and he’s trying to make it really hard for people to challenge what the administration is doing,” said Breen.
Associate Teaching Professor Laurie Hobart G’16 has published the article “AI, Bias, and National Security Profiling” in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. The article appears in Volume 40, Issue 1.
From the abstract: “This Article outlines the ways that AI may reproduce human bias in national security investigations at scale. It argues that current case law is insufficient to protect civil rights and civil liberties against discriminatory uses of AI. It discusses potential barriers to constitutional challenges under Fourth Amendment, Equal Protection, First Amendment, and Due Process precedents; limitations on Bivens claims; and issues arising from classification, state secrets doctrine, and general judicial deference in national security contexts. While explaining how current case law risks civil rights and civil liberties in the face of AI profiling, the Article also offers litigation strategies for civil rights advocates to proceed under the status quo.
“The stakes are never higher than when someone’s liberty hangs in the balance,” says John J. Dowling III L’20 of why he chose to become a criminal defense attorney.
Dowling started his criminal defense practice, Dowling Defense Group LLC, in 2021 in Charlotte, North Carolina. After graduating from Syracuse University College of Law, he had opportunities to join larger organizations that would have initially been more lucrative, but he decided to blaze his own trail to gain trial experience as quickly as possible.
“It’s difficult to generate trial experience right out of law school. If you work for a big firm, it’s going to be a long time before you get to try a case in front of a jury,” he explains. “So I went another way and opened a law firm by myself, and it’s amazing. I’m so glad I did it, as I’ve already tried a number of cases and argued two cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals.”
Dowling believes that the advent of the plea bargain—which didn’t always exist—has resulted in less trial experience for attorneys. “Trial by jury pre-dates the American Revolution, and I don’t think plea deals are how the framers of the Constitution thought this is how it would go,” he says. “A jury trial is the spinal column of the criminal justice system, but it’s used less and less because the risks of going before a jury can be higher.”
His focus on federal criminal law is not often a common choice, but he likes the challenge of going up against the federal government, including the FBI, Secret Service, or IRS.
“It’s a huge process when the federal government comes at you with all its forces,” he says. “But, Syracuse Law set me up to be an effective criminal lawyer, and now I’m using those skills to help others.”
Dowling is thankful for the education he received at Syracuse Law, calling it “one of the best in the country” and noting the experience he gained in various legal externships, as well as Trial Practice, Trial Advocacy and Moot Court. He points to Associate Dean for Online Education and Teaching Professor Shannon Gardner as someone who had a big impact on him as she demonstrated excellence and professionalism within the law.
His law school education also cemented his beliefs that criminal defense attorneys are an essential function of the law. “Everyone deserves a defense,” Dowling says. “Whether someone is guilty or innocent, things need to be handled the right way, and rules need to be abided by in order for a fair system to exist.”
Many of his cases are considered white collar crimes, which come with complex questions and interpretations of the law. “Clients can get themselves into situations that weren’t nefarious, but the consequences can be devastating to their lives, marriages, finances, etc. And, whether or not the government can show proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not as cut and dried as people think,” Dowling says.
“White collar crimes can often be harder to figure out and more nuanced than violent crimes, but they still have devastating penalties,” he adds. “There are many people who are falsely accused or overcharged, not because prosecutors are corrupt but because a witness might be lying, evidence is presented in a certain way, or the government has taken shortcuts. Often, it’s the consequences of misunderstandings that put people in prison.”
He is pleased with the path he chose and finds his job as a defense attorney fascinating, interviewing witnesses, doing research, and demonstrating his knowledge of the law in front of juries, all in an effort to make sure his clients get a fair trial.
Dowling acknowledges there are a few cases he won’t take, but, he says, “I don’t struggle with what clients are accused of doing because I recognize that all people have rights. I’m not here to agree or disagree. I’m here to serve an essential function of the American legal system.”
Professor of Law Emeritus William C. Banks spoke with Newsweek for the story “Greenland as 51st state: What U.S. taking over Arctic island could look like”.
Banks, who specializes in national security law, called the idea of Greenland becoming a U.S. state “almost surely a pipe dream of Trump.” “Greenland would have to request statehood, itself a ridiculously remote prospect. Clashes with Denmark and the EU would be legion, and if the U.S. attempted to take Greenland by force, it would be waging an unlawful war.”
“Hypothetically,” for Greenland to become a state, Banks says, “Congress would have to enact a statute admitting Greenland (to the U.S.) and the president would then sign the bill, making it a law and adding Greenland. If the people and government of Greenland/Denmark remain opposed, it is hard to see how governance as a state could work.”
Professor of Law Gregory Germain spoke with Newsweek about the use of the chat app Signal by Trump administration leaders to discuss war plans attacking Yemen. A journalist was added to the group chat.
“I don’t know if it’s technically a crime to use a server that is not set up and approved by the government to discuss top secret war plans; I do know that it’s incredibly sloppy and dangerous, and government officials need to be a lot more careful and put procedures in place to prevent something like this from happening again,” he said.
“But even if it is some sort of crime, who is going to prosecute? It’s very hard to see Pam Bondi’s Justice Department bringing charges over this incredibly sloppy and embarrassing incident,” he said.
Germain added that, under federal code, 18 USC 798, it is a crime to “knowingly and willfully” share classified information with people who do not have appropriate clearances.
“Presumably, the sharing of information with the journalist was a mistake, not a knowing and willful violation,” he said.
Vice Dean Keith Bybee appeared on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC Radio) program Future Tense, speaking about his book “How Civility Works.” The program examines how society functions in an increasingly uncivil world.
Bybee says “When we think about law as something that is authoritatively determined according to a specified process, so we know something is a law for people in the community to obey not because I just said it or you just said it but because duly elected officials have followed the process for passing that law and has been promulgated and enforced according to preestablished rules, we have institutions in place called courts of law that tell us what to do when there is a dispute over what a law means.
We lack all that, typically, in the case of civility. That lack of governing and regulating institutions in the case of good manners has led people on occasion to make civility more like law and determine codes of conduct that can be enforced by authoritative institutions.”
Crandall Melvin Professor of Law Shubha Ghosh spoke with Politico on the potential Oracle/TikTok deal in the story “Trump’s TikTok-Oracle deal could break the law — but nobody can stop him”.
Oracle shareholders may have standing to sue if the deal negatively affects the value of Oracle stock. However, even concerned shareholders may be unable to stop a deal between Oracle and TikTok from moving forward. Ghosh said shareholder lawsuits typically take place “after the fact,” triggering only once a deal is agreed to and later goes sideways.
(Syracuse, NY – March 24, 2025) The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will hold oral arguments at Syracuse University College of Law on March 28 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. The oral arguments are free and open to the public. Seating is limited.
The court session will be held in the Melanie Gray Ceremonial Courtroom in Dineen Hall, 950 Irving Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13244.
The cases to be argued are Keri Spring, et al v. Allegany-Limestone, et al and United States of America v. Allen R. Clark.
In addition, Director of Legal Communication & Research and Teaching Professor Aliza Milner will hold a lecture on the appellate process on March 28 at 9:30 a.m. in Dineen Hall. The lecture is open to all.
No cell phones, laptops, cameras, or video recording devices will be permitted in the courtroom during arguments. The College of Law will not be able to store any items.
About the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory covers the states of Connecticut, New York, and Vermont, and it has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: District of Connecticut. Eastern District of New York. Northern District of New York. Southern District of New York, Western District of New York, and District of Vermont.
The U.S. Court of Appeals sits just below the Supreme Court of the United States in the judicial branch of the federal government.
