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Student Profile: 3L Cecily Capo

A third-year law student draws on her STEM training to help entrepreneurs bring ideas to market.

Some people spend years deciding what to do with their lives. Cecily Capo L’23, a third-year student in Syracuse University’s College of Law, knew in an instant.

It was the spring of 2021, and, like most college students at the time, Capo was making the most of remote learning. Truth be told, she felt listless, disconnected from her law studies.

Salvation came in the form of a virtual open house for Syracuse’s Innovation Law Center (ILC), an experiential learning program for students interested in technology commercialization. One of the presenters was a silver-tongued attorney named Jack Rudnick L’73, the face of the 30-year-old center for more than a decade.

Read the full article here.

Class of ’23 Cecily Capo pictured at Dineen Hall in the Innovation Law Center.

Professor Nina Kohn Writes on Protecting the Voting Rights of Long-term Care Facility Residents

Writing at the American Society on Aging’s Generations Today digital publication, David M. Levy Professor of Law Nina Kohn discusses the need to protect the voting rights of residents of long-term care facilities. In the article, Voters Live Here: Understanding the Voting Rights and Needs of Long-term Care Residents, Kohn covers common barriers, legal protections, and how care facility staff can help.

“Whether long-term care residents can vote is not a trivial issue. Voting is a fundamental right, a powerful symbol of membership in the community, and can be an important source of self-worth. The right to vote also provides long-term care residents with an important opportunity to defend their interests—interests that are often pushed to the wayside. Moreover, long-term care residents’ votes could be decisive in critical races,” Kohn concludes.

Professor Nina Kohn Co-authors Guardianship Expert Opinion Article at Bloomberg Tax

Professor Nina Kohn has co-authored the expert opinion article “Modern Laws and Out-of-Court Solutions Can Advance Guardianship” at Bloomberg Tax Law.

Robert Dinerstein, American University Washington College of Law; Deborah Enix-Ross, American Bar Association, and Ellie Lanier, University of Georgia School of Law are co-authors of the article.

In her portion of the article, Professor Kohn discusses the need to increase court resources and reform at the legislative level to acknowledge the voices and rights of those served.

“Each of us has the potential to become a person subject to guardianship. Each of us has the potential to find a loved one entrapped in the guardianship system. It’s time to contact elected representatives and demand guardianship reform,” Kohn concludes.

3Ls Kevin Casserino and Angelica Judge Win the 45th Annual Lionel O. Grossman Trial Competition

3Ls Kevin Casserino and Angelica Judge prevailed over 2Ls Daniel Bonsangue and Gavin Gretsky in the 45th Annual Lionel O. Grossman Trial Competition. Casserino was selected as the Best Advocate.

Final round judges were the Hon. Glenn T. Suddaby L’85 (Chief U.S. District Court Judge, Northern District of New York), the Hon. Bernadette Romano Clark L’89 (Oneida County Supreme Court Judge), the Hon. Jeffrey Leibo L’03 (Administrative Law Judge for New York State), and Julie A. North L’89 (retired, partner, Cravath.)

Professor Gary Pieples Discusses Onondaga County’s Use of Virtual Arrangements

In Onondaga County, virtual arraignments, enacted during the COVID pandemic on an emergency basis, continue to be used by Syracuse City Court. Professor Gary Pieples, Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic, explained that “virtual arraignments prevent attorneys from adequately being able to talk to clients, and prevent clients from asking questions of their lawyers during hearings.”

Read the full Central Current article.

2L Tracy Acquan was elected the Editor-in-Chief of the Syracuse Journal of Global Rights and Organizations and Impunity News (JGRO) for the 2023-2024 academic year

Acquan is the first African American and first African American Woman to hold this title.

The JGRO is a biennial academic journal run by Syracuse University College of Law students and serves as a platform for cutting-edge legal scholarship and research in the area of human rights.  

Professor Cora True-Frost L’01 is the faculty advisor to JGRO.

Professor Jack Graves Discusses Crypto Regulations with Crypto Compass

Professor Jack Graves provides insight into the lack of regulation in domestic and international cryptocurrency exchanges and its risks and implications to consumers at Crypto Compass.

Graves explains that whereas exchanges reminiscent of Coinbase are licensed cash transmitters, they don’t seem to be broker-dealers. “As soon as you talk about broker-dealers of securities, that triggers a bunch of disclosure and custody requirements,” Graves states. “I happen to use Fidelity as my brokerage company, and if Fidelity goes bankrupt, I’m not an unsecured creditor in bankruptcy. So, I have a claim to my assets before all the unsecured creditors.”

THE WAR IN UKRAINE BY THE NUMBERS

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022

CIVILIAN
7,200 / 11,800 Civilians killed + wounded

8 million Ukrainian refugees

900,000-1.5 million Civilians forcibly deported to Russia

5.4 million Internally displaced persons

MILITARY
120,000 / 200,000
Ukrainian + Russian soldiers killed or wounded

2,000
Russian tanks destroyed

100,000
US-made Howitzer rounds sent to Ukraine

8,000 / 1,600
US-made Javelins + Stingers sent to Ukraine

INFRASTRUCTURE
1,582 Ukrainian cultural + heritage sites damaged

$54 billion Cost to repair residential buildings

$36 billion Cost to repair Ukraine’s critical infrastructure

LEGAL & ECONOMIC
66,000 Reported war crimes

$138-750 billion Total estimated cost to rebuild Ukraine

35% Drop in Ukraine’s GDP in 2022

Sources & additional statistics

Presented by the Institute for Security Policy & Law