Director of Communications

Jeanne Leblanc

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The study of law is a conversation, and the Brown Family Campus Center at UConn School of Law is an ideal place for that conversation to happen, Dean Timothy Fisher said at the dedication of the new café and gathering place on Oct. 18, 2017. Student Gideon Asemnor ‘18 saw a multitude of conversations begin when the campus center opened at the start of the semester. It felt very different from his first year at the law school, when there was only a small cafeteria in the basement of Hosmer Hall and students seemed to disappear right after classes ended, he told the audience at the ceremony. “Starting this semester, there’s been a tremendous change on campus,” he said. “You see students from all walks of life, from different backgrounds, LLMs, JDs, you see them sitting together at the tables, having lunch and discussing tort issues or whatever cold call they got that day,” University President Susan Herbst opened the dedication ceremony with a thank you to the Brown family for generously funding the creation of the campus center in the slate foyer of the Thomas J. Meskill Law Library, facing the main quad. Joe Brown ’16 spoke on behalf of the family, welcoming the center as a place where students have already begun learning and sharing. Before the ceremony, Joe’s father, Jay Brown, discussed the 2008 financial meltdown at a presentation in the Reading Room in William F. Starr Hall with UConn Law Professor James Kwak, author of Thirteen Bankers and Economism. Brown, the retired CEO of MBIA, remembered the most harrowing turns of the crisis and the measures that brought it under control. The dedication ceremony followed, with a reception afterward in the new campus center featuring food catered by the university’s Dining Services team, which operates the café. The café opened Aug. 28 to a steady flow of students, faculty and staff gathering for coffee, meals, conversations and study sessions. In September it served triple the number of customers served in the Hosmer cafeteria in September 2016, according to Retail Operations Manager Ethan Haggerty. The café is open from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Friday, providing meals for Day and Evening Division students alike. The menu includes soups, salads, sandwiches, pizza, snacks and baked goods. Customers have been enthusiastic about the café and the rest of the campus center. First-year students Kileigh Nassau and Jesse Sahani sit there every day and refer to it as their “office.” Every friendship they’ve made has started there, they said. Tyler Conklin ’18 said the center brings faculty and students together. “I have seen the dean here, and it really breaches the gap,” he said. “It fosters a sense of community on campus that did not exist before.”

New Brown Family Campus Center Dedicated

The study of law is a conversation, and the Brown Family Campus Center at UConn School of Law is an ideal place for that conversation to happen, Dean Timothy Fisher said at the dedication of the new café and gathering place on Oct. 18, 2017. Student Gideon Asemnor ‘18 saw a multitude of conversations begin […]

October 20, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc

Attorney Santolo Odierna and unidentified client

‘Incubator’ Lawyers Making Legal Help Affordable

'We see an enormous need for legal assistance at a reasonable cost, particularly among people who don’t qualify for legal aid but can’t afford standard legal fees.'

September 26, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc

Community Impact
Professor Jessica Rubin, right, discusses a case with, from left, West Haven Animal Control Officer Denise Ford, law student Christopher Kelly, and Desmond’s Army co-founder Christine Kiernan.

UConn Law Team Pioneers Courtroom Advocacy for Animals

The new program for abused animals is gaining ground in Connecticut and attracting notice across the nation.

September 15, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc

Community Impact
The Thomas J. Meskill Law Library at UConn School of Law in Hartford.

Three UConn Law Alumni Honored for Service to Community

Former state Sen. Eric D. Coleman and business executives Cheryl A. Chase and Steven M. Greenspan will be honored next month with awards from The University of Connecticut Law School Alumni Association. Ms. Chase, co-president and general counsel of Chase Enterprises, a real estate development and management company, will receive the 2017 Distinguished Graduate Award. […]

September 8, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc

Gravestones at the Potočari genocide memorial near Srebrenica. (Michael Büker Photo, via Wikimedia Commons)

Professor’s New Book Examines Link Between Speech and Violence

Are political leaders liable for inciting their followers to persecute religious minorities or ethnic and racial groups? What responsibility do media owners have for disseminating hate speech during widespread social conflict? From Nazi Germany to Rwanda and Bosnia, courts have struggled to hold the public figures who foment hatred accountable for the ensuing violence. In […]

August 29, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc

Karen DeMeola

Karen DeMeola Installed as CBA President

Karen DeMeola ‘96, assistant dean for enrollment and students at UConn School of Law, took on an additional set of responsibilities on July 1, 2017, when she became president of the Connecticut Bar Association. She leads a team replete with UConn Law alumni. Jonathan M. Shapiro ‘01, a partner at Shapiro Law Offices LLC in […]

July 5, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc

American flag and fence. (Alxey Pnferov via Getty Images)

UConn Group to Spend Spring Break Assisting Asylum Applicants

A team led by UConn Law's Asylum and Human Rights Clinic will spend the break at a detention facility offering free legal help and social work assessments and support to female detainees from Central America.

March 8, 2017 | Tracy Gordon Fox

Shira A. Scheindlin Named 2017 Day Pitney Visiting Scholar

Shira A. Scheindlin, a retired judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York known for high-profile cases involving civil rights and public policy, is the 2017 Day Pitney Visiting Scholar at UConn School of Law. She will visit the law school on April 4, 2017, to speak on the […]

February 15, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc

Professor Alexandra Lahav Defends Litigation in New Book

The popular perception of a nation awash in frivolous lawsuits and outrageous damage awards is not just inaccurate, it is undermining one of the pillars of American democracy, writes UConn Law Professor Alexandra Lahav in a new book, In Praise of Litigation. This is because courts and legislatures have reacted by limiting people’s ability to […]

February 2, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc

Professor James Kwak and the cover of his book, Economism

Professor James Kwak’s New Book Explains Dangers of ‘Economism’

The simplistic idea that free markets always generate the greatest possible economic well-being is helping drive economic inequality, writes UConn Law Professor James Kwak in a new book, Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality. In the book, released this month by Pantheon Books, Kwak defines economism as the “invocation of basic economics lessons […]

January 27, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc