Student accomplishments

Brittany Bradshaw and Bonsitu Kitaba

were featured in a Legal News article about law students who have served externships with federal judges. Kitaba (right) spent last summer's clerkship with Judge Nancy Edmunds at U.S. District Court in Detroit. Bradshaw did her externship in the office of Judge Arthur Tarnow.

Klaudia Nikolli

was awarded a 2013 Outstanding Woman Law Student scholarship by the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan Foundation.

Shivangee Pandya

made a presentation on business entity selection during a special event for Quarterly Business Owners that was held at the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights and hosted by the Business and Community Law Clinic with Midtown Detroit Inc.

Robert Thomas

has been appointed by the Detroit City Council to the city's Board of Zoning Appeals. Thomas is active in the Program for Entrepreneurial and Business Law at Wayne Law.

Kevin Kresch

has been elected as president of the Student Board of Governors for 2013-14. SBG officers for the coming year are Ana Campos, Zach Rowley, Blake Edwards, Justin Hanna, Deborah Johnson, Marcia West, Adam Kessler, Nora Youkhana, Chris Chesney, Henry Ibe and Melissa Brown. Student governors at large are Katie LaForest, Stephen Johnston, Mike Szparaga, Emily Mayer, Chelsey Marsh, Katie Vanderveen, Luke Wolfe, Wade Fink, Angela Strobbel, Nick Jones, Zainab Sabbagh, Lauren Samona, Nishal Patel, Karrine Marcolini, Nadine Yousif and Sumeet Aggarwal.

Robert Johns, Jessica Wayne and Kenneth Cox

are the members of Wayne Law's environmental moot court team who competed recently at Pace Law School in New York and won the award for Best Brief-Intervenor Appellant. The team also advanced through oral arguments to the quarterfinals of the National Environmental Moot Court Competition. Johns is team captain. Professor Nicholas Schroeck works with team and called the best brief award "a huge honor."

Lynn Bartkowiak

was named editor-in-chief for the 2013-14 Executive Board of Wayne Law Review. Other students named to the board include Elizabeth Gotham, managing editor; Suzanne Sutherland, production editor; Emily Mayer, executive articles editor; Chelsey Marsh, executive note and comments editor; Stephanie Eisenberg, symposium editor; Angela Strobel, technology editor. Notes and comments editors are Chris Adams, Jane Burke, Josh Noffke, Jessica Russell and Lauren Saad. Senior article editors are Weiling Chou, Andrew Eurich, Erick Hosner, Maryam Karnib, Mark Steiner, Patrick Tully and Courtney Williams.

Kaitlyn Cramer, Jessica Wayne, Bonsitu Kitaba, Klaudia Nikolli and Rachel Hom

will go on to the international round of the Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court competition after winning the regional contest in Chicago. Cramer won the regional competition as best overall speaker, the Wayne Law team's brief shared a spot in a three-way tie for third, and Nikolli tied for fifth-place speaker. Hom is chancellor of the team, which beat out 24 other teams in the regional contest.

Steven Helton and Zachary Van Horn

have been selected to work as interns this summer in the London office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, a multinational law firm with offices around the world. The third-year students will work in the firm's international arbitration group, which includes some of the world's foremost experts in the field.

Kathleen LaForest and Kevin McQuillan

are winners of the 2012 Arthur Neef Moot Court Competition. The four finalists in this year's competition were second-year students Jake Vorkapich (left) of Canton and Jason Alvarado of Rochester Hills, who argued for the petitioner; and winners LaForest of Ann Arbor and McQuillan of Toledo, Ohio, who argued for the respondent.

Jack Schulz

, Student Bar Association Board of Governors President, received the Bernard Gottfried Memorial Endowed Scholarship in Labor Law from Terry A. Morgan, regional director, Region 7, of the National Labor Relations Board recently. The scholarship is awarded to a student planning to pursue a career in labor and employment law.

Blair Gould

was awarded the Erman Teicher Miller Zucker & Freedman PC Annual Scholarship recogonizing scholastic achievement to encourage continued progress and to provide assistance to students in financing their Law School education. Gould, a second-year law student, works as a law clerk in the law office of Alan Lowenthal and served as a judicial intern to Hon. Mark Randon in U.S. District Court, Eastern Division of Michigan.

Ryan Schutte

received an award from the Michigan State Bar Environmental Law Section for an essay he submitted in the Michigan Environmental Law Journal as a second-year student. His third-place finish is "especially impressive" because he was in competition with third-year students, said Christopher Dunsky, editor of the MELJ. "Ryan's work is superb, well deserved," said Wayne Law Associate Professor Noah Hall, who teaches Environmental Law. He was presented with the $500 award by Anna Maiuri, ELS chair.

Free Legal Aid Clinic student attorneys

working at the Detroit Free Legal Aid Clinic were thrilled recently to cut the ribbon and officially move into their brand new digs - right next to the organization's former office on Woodward Avenue. Last winter, the clinic, which operates in conjunction with Lakeshore Legal Aid and with the Elder Law and Advocacy Center, was in trouble. The roof of FLAC's former home office was caving in. The Wayne Law students came up with a possible solution for a new and better office to help them serve FLAC's low-income clients, and the clinic's Executive Board - all students -presented their "case" to Law School Dean Robert Ackerman. He was impressed with their initiative, and that they hadn't asked the university, which helps sponsor the clinic, to solve the problem for them. Ackerman helped the students put their plan into action. A couple of moves were involved. First, the clinic - run by law students under the supervision of licensed attorneys - had to move lock, stock and law books into temporary office space on the Law School's third floor. The students found more permanent new office space for FLAC in a building right next door to their old one, but it needed extensive renovations, and the students needed a place to work for their clients while the repairs took place. The students also proposed to the dean a way to fund the renovations for the new office. "We said we could pay a third (through fundraisers), the law school could pay a third and the alumni could pay a third," said FLAC Chairwoman Gabrielle Saitz, a third-year law student. "We wanted to be close to the law school." Ackerman made it happen, and found funds in the law school's budget to provide FLAC with a little extra besides. He is proud of the students, proud of the conscientious manner in which they run FLAC, and proud of the service FLAC has provided to Wayne County's low-income residents since the clinic was founded in 1965 by Wayne Law alumni, students and private donors. And now the student attorneys with FLAC have moved into their new space, which is bigger than their original office space and in a location familiar to their clients. Wherever they work, the students with FLAC share a passion for advocacy and service, and enthusiasm for the clinic's work, whether they're doing it as interns for credit, work-study students for a stipend or as volunteers. "We're helping people who've been in really bad situations," said FLAC Secretary Julie Bland, a third-year law student. "It feels really good to be someone's advocate and help them get out of a bad situation. Ideally, I would like to work in legal aid (after graduation)." Patrick Klida, a second-year law student who works with FLAC, said he, too, would like to work as an attorney after graduation for "the people who need it most and for causes I believe in." "FLAC has a legacy in the community, and that's something I want to contribute to and be a part of," he said. "My heart's really in the mission." The "mission" now has office space at 5425 Woodward Avenue. Donations are welcome. Visit http://www.detroitflac.com to learn more.

Environmental law students

Three Wayne State University Law School students in the Transnational Environmental Law Clinic have received highly coveted internships this summer. Robert Johns will be working with the Michigan Attorney General's Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Division in Lansing. Katie Okonowski has an internship in Atlanta with Environmental Protection Agency. Nick Ranke will intern with the legal staff at the MDEQ, in conjunction with the Department of Natural Resources, the Attorney General's Office, Administrative Law Judges and the Department of Agriculture.

Journal of Law in Society

announces its newly elected board for 2012-13: Editor-in-Chief Victoria Suber, Managing Editor Sorin Borlodan, Reviewing Editor Avery Rose, Symposium Director Kanika Suri, Public Relations Director and Business Editor Maggie Seeger, Senior Note Editor Amanda Skalski, and article editors Ashleigh Weinbrecht and Ryan Paree.

Sarah Barbantini

co-wrote an article with Adam Kutinsky, '00, titled "The uniqueness of professional-liability policies" for the Feb. 17 issue of Michigan Lawyers Weekly. Kutinsky is a principal at Kitch Drutchas Wagner Valitutti and Sherbrook with the Commercial Litigation group; Barbantini is a law clerk on his team.

John Zervos

had an article published in the Huffington Post Detroit titled "Detroit in Transition: The Restructuring of Governance Through Privatization and Corporatization." The article talks about the upcoming Journal of Law in Society symposium to be held on March 23. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-m-zervos/detroit-privitization_b_1291869.html?ref=detroit

Chelsea Zuzindlak

3L, has accepted an offer of employment from the U.S. Department of Justice through the Attorney General's Honors Program. The two-year program starts in September 2012. Zuzindlak will be working at the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, Detroit Immigration Court, in the McNamara Federal Building downtown.

Suzanne Quinn

is profiled in December 2011 issue of the American Bar Association\'s Student Lawyer magazine. The article, titled \"A Nontraditional Path to Law School,\" features Quinn\'s community activism and her work with humanitarian aid organizations before coming to Wayne Law.

Eleanor Ung

was recently named Law Student of the Year by the National Asian Pacific American Law Student Association. This award recognizes exceptional student members of NAPALSA demonstrating a commitment to the group\'s mission, service to his/her local APALSA organization, and the promotion of Asian Pacific Americans in the legal profession. She will be honored at the association\'s National Conference in Atlanta in mid-November.

Min Jian Huang

led the Disability Law Clinic in receiving a fully favorable decision in one of its cases. The case involved an eight-year-old boy with autism whose mother applied for children\'s SSI benefits on his behalf in March 2010. The Social Security Administration denied the application, and the child\'s mother then requested a hearing before an administrative law judge. Min Jian Huang represented the mother and child at the hearing. Min persuaded the judge that the child has marked limitations in the domains of acquiring and using information and interacting and relating to others, and therefore is disabled under Social Security\'s definition of disability for children. The child will receive past due SSI payments dating back to the month the application was filed, plus monthly SSI payments for the foreseeable future. Eligibility for SSI also means that the child will receive health insurance through Medicaid.

Stephanie Karisny

recently won the 2011 Environmental Law Essay Contest sponsored by the Environmental Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan. The title of her essay is \"Hydraulic Facturing in Michigan: Reassessing State Regulations in Light of New Drilling in the Collingwood and Utica Shales.\" According to Karisny, the essay examines the utilization and regulation of the hydraulic fracturing process in Michigan taking into account the new hydraulic fracturing rules issued by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality on May 25, 2011. Where necessary, the essay makes suggestions for revision in or addition to the state\'s hydraulic fracturing regulations.

Margaret Stalker

recently placed third in the 2011 Environmental Law Essay Contest sponsored by the Environmental Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan. Her paper was titled \"The Asian Carp Invasion: The Supreme Court\'s Failure to Protect the Great Lakes.\" According to Stalker, in December of 2009 the State of Michigan, supported by numerous other Great Lakes States, filed a lawsuit in the United States Supreme Court (Wisconsin v. Illinois, 130 S. Ct. 2397 (2010)) to force a closure of portions of the the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS), a manmade waterway that connects the Mississippi River Basin to the Great Lakes Basin. However, the Supreme Court, without stating the reason for its decision, declined to hear the case. Stalker\'s paper examined the arguments that Michigan made and the defendants\' responses to those arguments. It concluded that because the Asian carp poses a grave threat to the Great Lakes ecosystem and the arguments Michigan put forth in support of the Supreme Court setting the dispute concerning the future of the CAWS were compelling and legally sound, the Supreme Court should have taken the case. By declining to do so, the Court has given the Asian carp more time to find its way into the Great Lakes.

Jack Schulz

a second-year student, was elected as a student delegate for the National Supreme Senate of Delta Theta Phi Law Fraternity. Jack represented Wayne Law\'s chapter, the C.B. Warren Senate, at the fraternity\'s bicentennial conference held at Campbell University in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was elected by voting delegates from each Senate, alumni, and past chancellors of the fraternity. Jack worked with several other students last year to reactivate Delta Theta Phi at Wayne Law and was elected dean of the school\'s senate. As student delegate, Jack will serve a two-year term as the representative for the Midwest, representing all the schools in the area. Delta Theta Phi is currently recruiting for the fall semester. Feel free to contact Jack at jack.schulz@wayne.edu for details.