Professor Gregory Germain discussed President Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship with Newsweek.
Germain said that Trump will have to focus on the second phrase of the 14th Amendment, arguing that children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.
“That seems like a question that will ultimately have to be decided by the Supreme Court. Trump can argue that the phrase about being ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ must have meaning, and should be read as a limitation on birthright citizenship,” he said.
Professor Gregory Germain spoke with Newsweek in the wake of Silk Road website Founder Ross Ulbricht being pardoned by President Trump. At question is if Ulbricht could regain cryptocurrency, now valued at $18 billion, that was seized in the case against his website.
“The law currently says that a pardon does not erase the fact that a person was convicted, nor does a pardon affect civil liability to an individual or to the government,” Germain said.
“It only affects the government’s ability to impose or continue a criminal punishment.”
(Syracuse, NY – January 23, 2025) Syracuse University College of Law is adding the Syracuse Medical Legal Partnership (SLMP) to its Office of Clinical Legal Education starting with the Spring 2025 semester. Professor Suzette Meléndez will be the co-director of the new clinic along with Dr. Steven Blatt of Upstate University Hospital and Professor Sarah Reckess L’09 of Upstate Medical University.
The SMLP is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the pediatric unit at SUNY Upstate Medical University and Syracuse University College of Law. SMLP provides legal advocacy to improve the overall health and well-being of vulnerable patient populations. SMLP also works to achieve systemic change through the multidisciplinary education of law students, medical students, residents, and other professionals whose expertise is important to this goal. Doctors and lawyers will learn to work collaboratively to attain favorable outcomes for patients. Through this Partnership, patients receive critical legal assistance while professionals learn about using community resources and employing cooperative strategies to benefit patients and clients in their practices.
“The main goal of the SMLP is to educate law students about the role lawyers can play in positively affecting the lives of children that are facing significant medical and sociological obstacles,” says Meléndez. “Likewise, we hope to educate medical and social work professionals in how to best work with legal representation to deliver the best outcomes to patients.”
The SMLP combines a clinical offering and the Child Health Policy and Legal Practice course for students interested in developing legal skills and policy analysis in children’s health. Students will provide non-litigation legal services (intake, advice, research, and referrals) for a busy pediatric clinic in Syracuse around legal issues that impact healthcare access and outcomes. This may include children’s access to education, safe housing, medical equipment, family court issues, government aid programs, transition-age youth, and more. Special populations served by SMLP will be patients who have complex medical needs and patients who are aging out of pediatric health care and social services and need to preserve their legal rights.
“The SLMP is a unique approach to bridging the legal and sociological gap among a vulnerable population that is often faced with navigating the complicated systems during a crisis,” says Dean Terence Lau L’98. “Likewise, Syracuse Law students will gain critical skills such as interviewing clients and researching legal and policy solutions that are invaluable to their legal careers.”
Students can register for the clinic when they select classes for the Spring 2025 semester. Students enrolled in the SMLP must be co-enrolled in Child Health Policy and Legal Practice as the classroom component of this experiential course.
The College of Law offers students the opportunity to participate in seven clinics: Bankruptcy, Betty & Michael D. Wohl Veterans Legal Clinic, Criminal Defense, Housing, Sherman F. Levey ’57, L’59 Low Income Taxpayer Clinic, Syracuse Legal Medical Partnership, and Transactional Law.
Crandall Melvin Professor of Law Shubha Ghosh spoke with The Hill for the story “Trump, GOP China hawks at odds over TikTok ban.”
The divest-or-ban law, passed by Congress in 2024 and recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, gave TikTok’s parent company Bytedance until January 19, 2025, to divest. The law also allowed the president to issue a 90-day extension if the company is making progress toward a divestiture. It’s unclear if President Trump’s executive order uses that clause.
“The statute itself does allow him to stay [the ban] or to give an extension. And if he’s working within that, then it certainly would be legal for him to do, as long as he’s within his parameters,” said Ghosh.
He earlier spoke with KAAL-TV about Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that weighed national security apprehensions versus First Amendment freedom of speech concerns. “If manipulation is a justification for what Congress does and that overcomes you know first amendment concerns, then maybe Congress has been given more authority to go after not only foreign manipulation, but also domestic manipulation,” said Ghosh.
His comments are at 1:01 and 1:20 of the news story.
Associate Teaching Professor and Director of the Criminal Law Clinic Thomas Leith spoke with Newsday for the article “New NYS Court of Appeals hears more cases; prosecutors win fewer of them, data shows.” The article looks at data from the first year of the NY State Court of Appeals under Chief Judge Rowan Wilson which shows more judgments in favor of defendants.
“There’s a feeling now within the defense bar that, under Judge Wilson, you have a shot,” said Leith. “The feeling under Judge DiFiore was that your chances of winning or even getting your case to the top court were never very good.”
There is also a trend in which the court is hearing more cases under Judge Wilson. “The big uptick in cases heard under Judge Wilson is really important,” Leith said. “I think everybody should be happy that more cases are being decided” because the top court can clarify statutes and settle instances where mid-level courts issued differing opinions on a legal issue.”
E.I. White Chair and Distinguished Professor of Law Robin Paul Malloy’s paper Network Capabilities in Land Use and Disability Law was published in 74 Am. U. L. Rev. 461 (2024).
In the abstract, Malloy writes “In addressing the relationship between land use and disability, we must consider three primary methods for conceptualizing disability. The first is the ‘medical model’, the second is the ‘social construction’ model, and a third, suggested in this Article, is a ‘network capabilities’ model. The network capabilities model frames disability in terms of the built environment and focuses on understanding human capabilities from a land use perspective—that is, in relation to an integrated system of property infrastructure, assistive technology, and inclusive design. This method addresses disability as a regulatory matter focusing on public health, safety, and welfare. It balances concerns for accessibility with pragmatically achievable land planning goals.”
In his commentary, Banks states that “The Chinese hack of the U.S. treasury is likely just another step in the escalating cyber conflict between the U.S. and China. It is noteworthy that the U.S. was able to openly attribute the hack to a Chinese state sponsor—attribution is not typically straightforward, and our adversaries work hard to cover their tracks.”
Raised in Austin, Texas, Daniel Tyrone L’25 did not come from a family of lawyers. In fact, his happy, suburban childhood was thanks to the hard work of his parents, who ran their own small businesses. His dad had a contracting company, and his mom owned a small restaurant.
“My first real exposure to law was as a kid interacting with lawyers who would come into the restaurant,” he says. “As I started to get some insight into their world, it quickly became apparent to me the complexities of the situations they had to deal with and that that the job of an attorney included mental deep dives into heavy matters—a perception that never left me.”
After graduating from Texas State University, he admits he was a bit lost, but he could “hold a conversation with a brick wall,” which led him to his first professional job as a headhunter. That led him down a career path working in internal recruitment, employee relations and human resources at a number of companies. Today, he is the vice president for human resources for Bishop Lifting Products, Inc., a private equity-backed organization operating in the industrial lift niche. And, while he intends to stay in his current role, he is eager to soon be adding “legal counsel” to his title.
It was his work in employee relations that reignited his thoughts about studying the law. “As an employee relations specialist, your job is to investigate and mitigate any employee-related matters, particularly those with legal ramifications,” he explains. “I found that I really loved exploring basic employment law and enjoyed the research, as well as the opportunity to talk to some of the employment counsel.”
As he grew to better grasp this type of work, he noticed that many colleagues throughout every job function treated the law as a bit of an afterthought, noting that most smaller companies often do not have the luxury of inhouse legal counsel and avoid getting outside counsel due to cost. “I didn’t understand why others avoided researching the law, but I also realized it was an opportunity for me,” he says.
“Working in HR and also being in charge of legal makes me so much more valuable as an employee.”
—Daniel Tyrone L’25
It was the COVID pandemic that amplified his focus on the need for legal counsel in the workplace. He was still employed but stuck at home, so he took a practice LSAT one day. “I scored much higher than I thought I would,” Tyrone says. “So, I decided to run with it. I studied for the LSATs for four months and got a great score.”
Tyrone wasn’t looking for a change in his career path but an enhancement to the one he already had. “Working in HR and also being in charge of legal makes me so much more valuable as an employee,” he says.
However, he knew he couldn’t put his career on hold and, more importantly, he needed to be attentive to his wife and two children, so he sought out a program with flexibility.
“I didn’t know how limited my options were when it came to finding a hybrid law school,” Tyrone says. “I assumed that JD programs were like MBA programs and that every institution would have an online option, but I was wrong. I cannot tell you how happy I was when I found Syracuse Law’s JDinteractive Program (JDi). Not only was it what I was looking for, but it was at Syracuse University! That’s a brand. Everyone from Texas has heard of Syracuse!”
“My classmates are 25 to 60-plus with careers that range from a brain surgeon, a professional gambler, Fortune 500 execs, a news anchor, a farmer and some stay-at-home parents. Words cannot describe how bright the people in my cohort are. That’s the beauty of this program is that it allows those with limited time and many responsibilities to earn their JD.”
—Daniel Tyrone L’25
Now a 3L at Syracuse Law, Tyrone is well on his way to enhancing his HR career. He has nothing but praise for the way the JDi program allows him to juggle law school with the rest of his responsibilities, but his real admiration is for the diversity in backgrounds of his cohort.
“My classmates are 25 to 60-plus with careers that range from a brain surgeon, a professional gambler, Fortune 500 execs, a news anchor, a farmer and some stay-at-home parents. Words cannot describe how bright the people in my cohort are. That’s the beauty of this program is that it allows those with limited time and many responsibilities to earn their JD,” he says. “I’ve made great memories and formed great relationships, and I have the text chains over the past three years to prove it—filled with law theories, debates, sports conversations, parenting advice and more.”
Tyrone looks at his JDi experience as one of the best decisions he ever made and nothing short of “amazing,” as he looks forward to completing his degree and using his hard-earned legal skills in his career.
“I’m not sure I was anything exceptional to Syracuse Law,” he says with humility, “but Syracuse Law was exceptional to me.”
Professor Gregory Germain spoke with The Hill on the possibility of jury nullification for the Luigi Mangione trial, the man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Jury nullification occurs when a jury returns a not guilty verdict even though jurors believe beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant has broken the law. This may happen when jurors disagree with the law or the punishment.
“I think it’s very unlikely that a case like this is going to confront something like jury nullification,” said Germain. “Most of us hate insurance companies and have had difficult experiences dealing with insurance companies, but that doesn’t mean we think people should be going around murdering insurance executives in the street.”
Germain noted that it’s unlikely potential nullifiers will be able to hide that level of bias during the jury selection process. He adds that while Mangione does have a large fanbase, most “people who want to live in a civilized society are not going to find him to be an appealing defendant.”
This panel will focus on the potential contributions of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to socioeconomics and the study of law. In particular, the discussion will consider the role of the state, mechanisms for achieving full employment (including job guarantees), the relationship (or lack of one) between fiscal policy and inflation, the importance of community investment, and how to make these topics accessible and relevant to law students and legal scholars.
In many respects Fourth Amendment doctrine has evolved to expand law enforcement power to act on suspicions, frequently to the disadvantage of disfavored groups. Reversing these patterns is not just a matter of academic interest but a pressing need, amplified with the advent of more intrusive and pervasive surveillance technologies. Participants in this discussion will address the ways that suspicion is defined and constructed, its role (or failed potential) in constraining government power, the need for alternatives to suspicion to regulate mass data surveillance, and the potential for suspicion to serve as cover for bias.
In alignment with the conference theme of Courage in Action, this year’s program will focus on discussing the difficulties older adults experience in accessing basic needs, including healthcare and utilization of health technology; housing, aging in place, and long-term care; employment and retirement; and estate planning. As we age, we face significant life transitions that intersect with the law in these areas as well as others that can be challenging to navigate.
A key goal of the Section is to support our members in every aspect of their careers, including their scholarship. This panel provides section members with the opportunity to present a work-in-progress and receive feedback from senior scholars and other section members.
The Section believes that it is time to re-think the basic relationship between law and economics. Economics was introduced into legal scholarship as a tool for conservative political positions in the 1980s. It is time to recapture this valuable branch of modern knowledge and apply it to pressing topics such as climate change, automation and employment, and the relationships between the underregulation of finance, corruption, instability, and racial inequality. Participants will explore how a combined legal, economic, and social science approach can be productively applied to these topics.
It has been said that a “law degree is a leadership degree” and much has been written on the need for law schools to educate leaders. Fortunately, many legal educators have responded in interesting and courageous ways. Starting with visionaries like Dean Donald Polden and Professor Deborah Rhode–both of whom courageously fought for their vision of leadership development as part of legal education–the field has continued to evolve and grow. Fortunately, leadership development and leadership education–like leadership itself–is not limited to a one-size-fits-all approach. A plethora of different approaches to leadership development have emerged recently with different focuses, tactics, and desired outcomes. In this discussion group, we will discuss and celebrate these different approaches as we look at how law schools can best develop their students into good lawyer-leaders.
