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Philadelphia, PA, March 13, 2019 - The Peggy Browning Fund has awarded a 10-week summer fellowship to Nick Chan, a first-year student at University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Nick will spend the fellowship working at Justice at Work in Pittsburgh, PA. The application process is highly competitive, and the award is a tribute to his outstanding qualifications.
 
In 2019, the Peggy Browning Fund will support over 80 public interest labor law fellowships nationwide.  Securing a Peggy Browning Fellowship is not an easy task, with nearly 450 applicants competing for the honor this year.  Peggy Browning Fellows are distinguished students who have not only excelled in law school but who have also demonstrated their commitment to workers’ rights through their previous educational, work, volunteer and personal experiences. Nick Chan certainly fits this description.
 
Nick is a Houston native raised by immigrant parents from Hong Kong, China. His parents came to the U.S. without a formal education, limited English abilities, and primarily worked in the Chinatown restaurant and textiles industries. Due to his upbringing in Texas, he finds passion in the intersections of racial justice, gender equity, and global LGBTQ protections for immigrant populations. After undergrad, he worked for a Chinese telecommunications company catering to Asian immigrant populations in the U.S. In law school, he serves as a liaison to the National LGBT Bar Association for Pitt Law’s OutLaw student organization.
 
The Peggy Browning Fund is a not for-profit organization established in memory of Margaret A. Browning, a prominent union-side attorney who was a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1994 until 1997.  Peggy Browning Fellowships provide law students with unique, diverse and challenging work experiences fighting for social and economic justice.  These experiences encourage and inspire students to pursue careers in public interest labor law.
 
To learn more about the Peggy Browning Fund, contact Julia Watkins, Program Coordinator, by phone at 267-273-7996 or by email at jwatkins@peggybrowningfund.org, or visit www.peggybrowningfund.org.

On Friday, February 22, the University of Pittsburgh Police will be leading the Pitt Law Faculty and Staff in an active killer training workshop from noon until 4 PM. From 3-4PM there is a chance that you may hear simulated gunfire from the first floor. Signs will be posted and uniformed Pitt Police Officers will be in the area. Those who may be particularly sensitive to the sounds may wish to study elsewhere on campus at that time.
Pitt Police also offers Self Defense Awareness Familiarization Exchange (SAFE) to teach students a variety of self-defense tactics and options if confronted by an attacker. If you are interested in participating, please contact Officer Heather Camp at hlc33@pitt.edu.

Equal Justice Works, the nation's largest facilitator of opportunities in public interest law, today named its 2019 Class of Equal Justice Works Fellows. Seventy-six recent law school graduates will launch their careers through an Equal Justice Works Fellowship project of their own design, including University of Pittsburgh School of Law class of 2019 graduate, Alayna Bartko.
Selected from 450 applications, the 2019 Class of Equal Justice Works Fellows includes graduates from 39 law schools who will work at 73 legal services organizations in 18 states and the District of Columbia.
The 2019 Class of Equal Justice Works Fellows have created projects to address a wide range of legal issues. Alayna will establish an innovative and replicable advocacy program providing specialized legal support to children whose parents struggle with opioid addiction and are involved in juvenile court dependency cases.
As a Certified Legal Intern at KidsVoice, a non-profit agency that advocates in court and in the community to ensure a safe and permanent home for abused, neglected, and at-risk children, Alayna witnessed the tragedies that bring children into dependency proceedings, including the heart-wrenching cases that involve children who are victims of the opioid epidemic through its impact on their parents. Alayna strives to continue advocating for the children in her community who are affected by this crisis.
During her fellowship, Alayna will be part of task forces and committees to develop best practices to advocate for children whose families struggle with opioid addiction. Alayna will work with community stakeholders to establish better collaboration across the child welfare and substance abuse systems. She will also partner with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh to pursue legal strategies to address opioid­-related health issues.
“I have always been drawn to work that involves advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves. Children impacted by the opioid epidemic deserve staunch advocates in their corner and I am proud that it gets to be me,” said Alayna.
Each year, Equal Justice Works selects a class of passionate public service leaders who have designed projects in partnership with legal services organizations that help build sustainable solutions in the communities where they serve. The projects are funded by the generous support of law firms, corporations, foundations, and individuals. Many of the law firms and corporate legal departments leverage their sponsorship to increase engagement and service through pro bono support. 
"The Equal Justice Works Fellowship program offers aspiring public interest lawyers an opportunity to do so much more than provide legal representation—it's an opportunity to become a force for change," said David Stern, executive director at Equal Justice Works. "We are excited to welcome these new Fellows and look forward to seeing how they will help balance the scales of justice in our country."
Over the past three decades, Equal Justice Works has awarded more than 2,000 Fellowships to lawyers committed to public service. More than 85 percent of Fellows remain in public service, continuing to pursue equal justice for underserved communities across the country.
Learn more about Alayna’s project here.

University of Pittsburgh School of Law Professor Lu-in Wang was awarded a Social Science Research Initiative grant from the Chancellor’s Office for Research to support her team’s project, “Precarious Work and the Experiences of Frontline Service Workers.” She is the principal investigator on the project, which includes faculty from several other schools and units at the University of Pittsburgh.
Wang’s scholarship examines ordinary and extraordinary forms of discrimination and the connections between them. Her recent work explores the legal implications of economic and social stereotypes in the service industry, particularly with respect to discrimination in employment and against customers. An earlier book, Discrimination by Default: How Racism Becomes Routine (New York University Press 2006), draws on social psychology to detail three commonplace but generally unrecognized ways in which unconscious assumptions lead to discrimination in a wide range of everyday settings and how these dynamics interact to produce an invisible, self-fulfilling, and self-perpetuating prophecy of racial disparity. Wang also has written on more extreme forms of discrimination. In addition to being the author of Hate Crimes Law (West 1994), the first legal treatise on that subject, she has published several articles that apply insights from historical, sociological, and social psychological literature to illuminate the legal issues related to bias-motivated violence. Wang's articles have appeared in journals including the Southern California Law Review, the Ohio State Law Journal, the Boston University Law Review, the Lewis & Clark Law Review, the Michigan Journal of Race and Law, and the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law.
Wang has received the University of Pittsburgh Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award and has twice received the Student Bar Association's Excellence in Teaching Award. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute and The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation.
Wang has also served as a member of the faculty of the University of New Mexico School of Law. Before she began teaching, Wang practiced with firms in Chicago, Illinois, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. She also served as a staff attorney for The Center for Social Gerontology, a national support center on law and aging, and as a law clerk for the late Justice Ralph J. Cappy of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Learn what millions of viewers around the world have seen, Pittsburgh is home to ideas worth spreading by taking part in the largest TEDx event in the city: TEDxPittsburgh. Using the TED format, this independently organized platform showcases the ideas, individuals, and innovations that are contributing to progress in the region, including University of Pittsburgh School of Law professor Gerald Dickinson. Speakers will share ideas related to technology, entertainment and design that are making change happen in our region and in our world. Dickinson’s will speak on the Presidency and the border wall debate. Dickinson's teaching and scholarship focus on property, constitutional law, state and local government law, and affordable housing law and policy. His scholarship has featured in numerous law reviews, and he writes and comments frequently in local and national media outlets, including several editorials in the Washington Post and The Hill. Dickinson has also offered testimony to the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee regarding land acquisition issues along the US-Mexico border.
TEDxPittsburgh will be held on Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 11:30 a.m. in Pittsburgh’s Byham Theater. For more information and tickets, visit trustarts.org.

Nicholas Logan, candidate for JD in May 2020, responds to Bob Bauder’s article “AG Shapiro: UPMC’s ‘corporate greed’ hurting patients” (Feb. 7, TribLIVE).  Read it in the Letters to the Editor section of the Tribune Review.

Matiangai Sirleaf, University of Pittsburgh School of Law Assistant Professor, has been selected as one of four junior health law scholars to participate in the 2019 Health Law Scholars Workshop. Announced at the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics’ (ASLME) annual Health Law Professor Conference, the selected scholars are invited to present and workshop their research in progress and receive in-depth advice from experienced health law academics.​

Recipients are selected based upon abstract submissions. Sirleaf’s abstract Disposable Bodies and Experimental Trials was selected through a competitive process, and she will present and workshop her paper this fall at an annual workshop jointly sponsored by St. Louis University School of Law and ASLME.

Sirleaf was awarded the Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award for 2019. This award annually recognizes outstanding scholarly accomplishments of members of Pitt’s faculty. Awardees include faculty members who, by virtue of the exceptional quality of their early contributions, have demonstrated great potential as scholars and have achieved some international standing. Additionally, Sirleaf was recently awarded Pitt’s Social Science Research Initiative (SSRI) grant for her proposal, “Understanding the Development and Impact of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) – 1950 to Present.” The SSRI grants are awarded by the Provost's office to support new research collaborations at the university across schools and departments.

Pitt Law’s Mock Trial team, composed of Ashley Rundell, Kayla Minor, Kylee Clark and Andrew Bell, competed in the ABA Section of Employment and Labor Law’s 16 Annual Trial Advocacy Program this past weekend in Washington, DC. The team advanced to the championship round and ended the tournament in second place. They earned a bid to and plan to attend the National Championship round in New Orleans in Jan. 2020. 

An interactive event on Friday, Sept. 20, from noon to 1 p.m., at the University Store on Fifth will explore interesting and practical ways faculty can integrate discussion of mental illness into coursework. 
Join Christina Newhill, professor in the School of Social Work, and Linda Tashbook, adjunct professor of law and foreign, international and comparative law librarian at Pitt Law, for the event.
Between them, Newhill and Tashbook have authored or edited books that explain what clients and providers need to know about mental illness and how family members can help loved ones fight legal hurdles that people with mental illnesses might encounter. The session will allow time for audience questions and discussion.