Career Services Briefs

OCS Career Fair

On November 27, the School of Law invited students and recent graduates to meet representatives from a dozen government and judicial agencies, non-profit and for-profit groups. The private sector was represented by Fannie Mae, the nation's largest home mortgage lending institution, Lexis/Nexis, and the Kelly Law Registry.

Participating national and local government agencies were the US Department of the Interior's Office of the Solicitor, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (represented by Thais Mootz, '00) and the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (represented by Stephanie Ferguson, '85.) The D.C. Superior Court was represented by Ramberto Torruela.

Non-profits in attendance were the Appleseed Foundation; HALT: Americans for Law Reform; the D.C. Employment Justice Center; and the National Association for Public Interest Law (NAPIL).

D.C. Corporation Counsel's Recruiter Carol Burroughs fell ill and could not attend the event. She sent her apologies to all and rescheduled for January 29. Simultaneously, Dean Broderick secured a promise from the Corporation Counsel himself, Robert Rigsby (who has taught Professional Responsibility at the School of Law with his wife, the Hon. Anna Blackburn-Risby) to come and speak at UDC-DCSL. We now envision a workshop that focuses on the D.C. Corporation Counsel and features the many D.C. agencies for which it hires attorneys, many of which currently employ our alumni who could be invited to participate.

The Hiring Committee for the Office of the Corporation Counsel handles the hiring of all OCC attorneys and all of the line attorneys in the agencies under the purview of the Mayor: Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, Child and Family Services, Department of Banking and Financial Institutions, Department of Corrections, Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, Metropolitan Police Department, Department of Human Services, Department of Health, Department of Employment Services, Department of Fire and Emergency Services, Department of Insurance and Securities Regulation, Department of Mental Health, Department of Parks and Recreation, Office of Cable Television and Telecommunications, Office of Contracting and Procurement, Office of the Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining, Office of Personnel, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the Taxicab Commission. The committee also coordinates the hiring of general counsels, deputy general counsels and OCC supervisory positions for the Principal Deputy, Arabella Teal, and the Senior Deputy for Government Operations, Darryl Gorman.

Student Job Notes

Jose Polanco, `02, has been working at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Wagner Dantas, `02, has been offered a position by the Florida Public Defender Service's Orlando office.

Kenniah Canady, `04, has been offered a summer internship with Judge Arthur Burnett of the D.C. Superior Court.

Chessley Robinson, '03, and Tuna Mecit, '02, have been working with attorney Thomas Fortune Fay and for the Perles Law Firm on an international tort case stemming from the 1984 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beiruit, Lebanon that has been reported on in the national news. The federal court action seeks damages from Iranian assets frozen by the U.S. Department of Treasury.

Stephen Bright Speaks at UDC-DCSL

On Thursday, October 18th, reknowned death-penalty foe, Stephen B. Bright, addressed fifty members of the School of Law Community in the Window Lounge in an event coordinated by the Office of Career Services and the Dean.

Bright, Executive Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, described his direct legal representation-usually on appeal- of dozens of poor, usually minority inmates who typically received horrendously inadequate representation at trial. He spoke of the systems in many southern counties that often vest the lives of the accused on inexperienced, underpaid or patently incompetent lawyers and of the case law and appellate decisions that permit the situation to continue unabated into the 21st century.

This was Mr. Bright's second time speaking at UDC-DCSL and he expressed strong support and enthusiasm for the School of Law and its mission.

Action Without Borders Public Interest Job Fair

On November 29, UDC-DCSL hosted more than 100 non-profit organizations and 1,500 job seekers in the UDC Gymnasium for the Action Without Borders Job Fair.

These included, among many others, AFL-CIO; Americans for Justice; Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs; Ayuda, Inc.; Center for Environmental Citizenship; District of Columbia Commission on National and Community Service; Public Allies DC; Public Citizen; Teach For America- HQ; The Brookings Institution; The Center for Food Safety; The Center for Voting and Democracy; and the Whitman-Walker Clinic.