Professor Nina Kohn recently spoke with Law360 on the lawsuit State of Texas v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, et al. that seeks to overturn minimum nursing home staffing levels as set by the U.S Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in April.
In the article “With Billions At Stake, Texas Suits Target Nursing Home Rule” states, Kohn says allegations that the rule is arbitrary and capricious, are undermined by research on the staffing levels necessary to avoid neglect and the full regulatory review CMS carried out before issuing the standards.
“Already, nursing homes were required to have sufficient staff to meet resident needs,” Kohn told Law360. “The problem is that they routinely didn’t. And because there was no set number of staff hours per day set, it was hard for regulators to hold nursing homes accountable for not having the staff needed to avoid neglect.”
Thomas M. Leith has joined the faculty of Syracuse University College of Law and was named Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic (CDC.) Leith is an Associate Teaching Professor who teaches Legal Communication and Research and Trial Practice courses.
At the CDC, Leith will oversee Syracuse Law student-attorneys as they represent clients charged with misdemeanors and violations in Syracuse City Court and town courts in Onondaga County. Clients are represented at pretrial hearings and trials and are assisted in managing the civil consequences related to their criminal cases. All criminal cases are assigned to the Clinic through the court.
Prior to joining Syracuse University, Leith was the Managing Attorney of the Criminal and Appeals Programs at Hiscock Legal Aid Society (HLAS) in Syracuse, New York. He joined HLAS in 2020 as a Staff Attorney in Appeals. As Managing Attorney, he oversaw programs at HLAS representing indigent clients in their criminal, Sex Offender Registry Act, and family court appeals, post-conviction advocacy, and indigent parole clients in their hearings and appeals.
Leith spent the previous ten years as a trial-level public defender: first with Brooklyn Defender Services in Brooklyn, NY, then with the Law Offices of the Shelby County Public Defender in Memphis, TN. In his years in the courtroom, he has defended every type of criminal case, from violations and misdemeanors to clients charged with first-degree murder.
Before his roles in public service, Leith was in private practice at law firms in New York City. Leith also clerked for then-Chief Judge Raymond J. Dearie of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Since 2023, Leith has been an adjunct professor at the College of Law, teaching trial practice.
Leith earned a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Professor Gregory Germain spoke with Salon for an article about the September 18 sentencing of Donald Trump in the New York criminal case and efforts made by Trump’s attorneys to have the sentencing postponed until after the upcoming election.
“I think Trump’s request to delay sentencing is a clever ploy to make a record to argue in federal court that the judge was politically motivated to interfere with the federal election,” says Germain. “I doubt that the court will delay sentencing, but it will give Trump an additional argument to challenge the sentencing on appeal, or collaterally in a habeas corpus case if he’s sentenced to prison.”
College of Law professor who is an expert on criminal court pretrial appearance is partnering with computer science faculty to see if artificial intelligence tools and optimized data analysis can improve fairness and efficiency in scheduling defendants’ court dates.
Lauryn Gouldin (Photo by Marilyn Hesler)
Lauryn Gouldin, Crandall Melvin Professor of Law and a 2022-25 Laura J. & L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence, is one of three researchers on the project, “End-to-End Learning of Fair and Explainable Schedules for Court Systems.” She and Fernando (Nando) Fioretto, assistant professor of computer science at the University of Virginia (formerly of Syracuse University) and William Yeoh, associate professor of computer science and engineering at Washington University in St. Louis received a $600,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for the research. They are examining three issues: the uniformity and fairness of criminal court-date scheduling processes, if individual circumstances are considered when setting court dates, and whether a “smarter” computerized system can produce more equity and efficiency in those processes.
Ensuring that defendants who are released before trial return to court as scheduled is one of the primary goals of the pretrial process, Gouldin says. “Fortunately, data across jurisdictions suggest that most defendants show up for court as required. With bail reform efforts in many jurisdictions leading to higher rates of pretrial release, courts are focused on ensuring that pretrial appearance rates remain high,” she says.
Scheduling court appearances on dates and at times that work for defendants will help keep pretrial appearance rates high and avoid court system inefficiencies, she believes. Many factors—often legitimate hardships—can influence whether a defendant appears in court when scheduled. Gouldin says those factors are not consistently considered by courts and there is little uniformity in how appearance dates are scheduled from court to court.
The researchers are working to produce a system that predicts dates and times when defendants are more likely to appear versus being assigned an arbitrary court date or time. They believe having that knowledge, along with more flexibility in scheduling court dates—such as setting evening or weekend appearance dates—could improve pretrial appearance rates and create a more equitable scheduling process overall.
Shannon Chamberlain L’24 wrote the Top Student Paper in the Law and Policy Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) competition and presented the paper at their recent conference.
Chamberlain’s paper is ESCAPING LIABILITY FOR THE “GRAVEST OF THREATS”: EXPANDING ARTICLE 1, SECTION 6 IMMUNITY AND NARROWING BRANDENBURG INCITEMENT.
“This was an exceptional paper on a novel and contemporary issue with a compelling legal analysis and argument. I know the judges were impressed, too,” says Professor Roy Gutterman L’00. “Congratulations to Shannon for this achievement in a very competitive media law scholarship competition.”
Crandall Melvin Professor of Law Shubha Ghosh has published the second edition of his textbook “Questions and Answers: Antitrust” with Carolina Academic Press.
This second edition of Questions & Answers: Antitrust adds many new questions reflecting developments in antitrust law over the past decade: challenges to NCAA professionalism rules limiting athletes’ rights in Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL); pay for delay agreements; intellectual property limits on antitrust; credit card platforms; and trade associations. With these additions, students will continue to better understand what they are learning and prepare effectively for exams by applying concepts learned in antitrust courses. This study guide includes over 150 multiple-choice and short-answer questions arranged topically for ease of use during the semester, plus an additional set of 40 questions comprising a comprehensive “practice exam.”
For each multiple-choice question, the book provides a detailed answer that indicates which of the four options is the best answer and explains thoroughly why that option is better than the other three options. Each short-answer question is designed to be answered in fifteen minutes or less and includes a thoughtful, comprehensive, yet brief, model answer.
Professor Nina Kohn spoke with ProPublica for the article, “This Guardian Enriched Herself Using the Finances of Vulnerable People in Her Care. Judges Let It Happen.” The article uncovers apparent conflict of interest, profiting at wards’ expenses, and lax judicial oversight in multiple guardianship arrangements that placed Yvonne Murphy in charge of caring for vulnerable individuals.
ProPublica writes: But Murphy’s story illustrates just how culpable judges themselves can be in the system’s breakdown, permitting financial arrangements that experts said were unequivocally improper — even in cases when examiners point out potential problems. Lawyers, advocates and researchers alike say this laissez-faire judicial culture is the product of crushing caseloads, sparse resources and a shallow pool of guardians willing to take the most challenging cases. In New York City, there are just over a dozen judges who handle the 17,411 people in guardianships, data provided by the courts show.
“The easiest way to reduce the workload is not to look for problems,” said Kohn. “The second-easiest way is when you see problems, to ignore them.”
Angela R. Hamilton L’25 was selected as one of 25 women student veterans for a 2024 Focus Forward Fellowship, hosted by the Military and Family Research Institute at Purdue University.
The Fellowship connects Purdue faculty and women student veterans and service members from around the country to help the student veterans grow their professional network and reach their career and academic goals. The cohort of Fellows are provided with mentors and coaches whom they met at a recent four-day in-person residency at Purdue. The Fellows will continue to meet in an online community throughout the year. The mentors help the Fellows harness new skills, strengthen self-confidence, and facilitate community building.
Hamilton is a retired veteran of the U.S. Navy. At Syracuse Law, she participates in the Betty and Michael D. Wohl Veterans Legal Clinic and is a member of the Military and Veterans Law Society.
The ‘Cuse Vet Fest, a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Syracuse VA Medical Center and Syracuse University College of Law’s Military and Veterans Law Society (MVLS), will be held on Friday, September 6 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Dineen Hall’s Levey Atrium.
The event is free and open to all Syracuse-area veterans, including Syracuse University student, faculty, and staff veterans who are not enrolled in VA health care and want to learn more about eligibility and how to sign up.
Attendees can:
Enroll in VA Healthcare (Please bring a copy of DD214 and Photo ID)
File a claim with VBA
Obtain a Veteran Health ID Card (Please bring a Photo ID)
Learn how the PACT Act (Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxic Acts) expands healthcare benefits for Veterans who served in the Vietnam War, Gulf War, and post-9/11 eras and were exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. PACT Act also extends eligibility to survivors of these exposed Veterans.
Engage with VA professionals
Visit with a variety of local community resources
Representatives from Syracuse University’s Office of Veteran and Military Affairs and the Office of Veteran Success will be in attendance. MVLS students will guide attendees and facilitate interactions with partner organizations.
“For me, the decision to pursue a career in law is deeply rooted in the desire to effect positive change, provide client advocacy and foster relationships and community support. For these reasons, there was no better place for me to begin my legal career than Syracuse Law.”
—Ryleigh Peterson L’26
A Central New York native, Ryleigh Peterson L’26 only applied to one law school—The Syracuse University College of Law. “For me, the decision to pursue a career in law is deeply rooted in the desire to effect positive change, provide client advocacy and foster relationships and community support,” she says. “For these reasons, there was no better place for me to begin my legal career than Syracuse Law.”
While earning a bachelor’s degree in media studies with a minor in legal studies at Hunter College in New York City, Peterson worked as a legal personnel intern at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. Her interest in being a paralegal led to a position as a collateral review intern with the firm. Upon graduation, Peterson accepted a corporate paralegal position at Cravath, where she assisted the banking and credits, and mergers and acquisitions practice groups. However, she eventually returned to her hometown of Skaneateles, New York, and went to work as a business paralegal at Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC, in its Syracuse office. Not long after, she decided to pursue law school.
Since starting at Syracuse Law in Fall 2023, Peterson has been finding her way, making friends and figuring out what practice of the law she’d like to pursue. Returning to academia after three years of working professionally took some adjusting, but Peterson found comfort knowing she is where she belongs.
“As a 1L, I am passionate about learning, and I enjoy analysis and critical thinking,” she explains. “I like connecting the dots from my time as a paralegal to my current studies of the law.”
Already, she has learned some valuable lessons. “Law school has prepared me to get out of my comfort zone and learn new skill sets,” Peterson says. “I’m constantly pushing myself and doing things that I wouldn’t have done before I started here. Syracuse Law is preparing me to think critically, tackle difficult problems and shape myself into a future working professional.”
Peterson currently works as a law ambassador, giving tours of the school to prospective students, and also as a work-study student in the admission and financial aid office. She has also made a tight-knit group of friends who understand the pressures and expectations of law school.
“We’re all going through this process together. Law school is not easy but having a support system that understands what you’re going through makes it more manageable,” she says, noting that her parents, sisters and boyfriend have been “her rock” during the process.
Peterson is looking forward to returning to Bond, Schoeneck & King as a summer law clerk. “Right now, I think I’d like to work in corporate law because that’s the kind of experience I had as a paralegal, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it,” she says. “But, I still have a lot of learning to do, so who knows? I’m open to possibilities as I continue to take more classes.”
Peterson already has some advice to offer students just beginning the law school path. “Have confidence in yourself and be kind,” she says. “Law school is challenging, but you and your classmates are all going through this process for the first time. It’s a learning curve for everyone, and everyone learns differently. Stay true to yourself, and don’t compare yourself to anyone else. This experience is extremely rewarding in many ways, so embrace it!”
