Blog

As a law student in 1970, the upheaval of the 60's was a part of my thinking as I sat in my first class in Civil Procedure. As I looked around the classroom in what was an old repurposed factory building, I noticed many women about to take on law school with me. I confess I was too unaware to think about how or whether their opportunities in the profession would be different than mine as a white male. The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg causes me to look back and reflect on what I now know to be the way in which these women worked through the inequality and gender bias of the day with pride and determination to succeed in this honorable profession. 

In the summer of 2003, I traveled with several colleagues in the Irish American Bar Association of New York to Washington D.C. for a ceremony to be admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. I relished the pomp and circumstance of the occasion, the breakfast beforehand where Sandra Day O’Connor circled the room greeting our members, the moment the Court was called to order, the lush velvet curtains drawn back to reveal the nine justices whose decisions impact our lives in innumerable ways. I joked later that I was so close to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that she could have spit on me from her vantage point on the esteemed bench. Before the ceremony, I held my six month old daughter on my hip on the steps of the Supreme Court, taking for granted my ability to practice law, to be a working mother, the respect I received from my male colleagues, and the unlimited potential of my baby daughter to make her own choices in life - a choice of career, a choice of life partner, and a choice of family. I have Justice Ginsburg to thank for much of what we had that morning and continue to have.

This past week, Partner Janet Walsh, organized and co-hosted with Professor JaneAnne Murray of the University of Minnesota Law School a virtual event for the Irish American Bar Association of New York. The event celebrates James Joyce's Ulysses and its contribution to First Amendment jurisprudence in the United States. Featured in the Irish Times, the event raised money for Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative which is “committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.”

Every person is responsible for themselves and their actions or their failure to act. However, in a society, every person also has a duty, an obligation, to act (or not act) in a way which is responsible for others. This is why we as a society have laws. The Laws are the Rules to live by; if you break or disobey those rules, you can hurt yourself and others around you. For example, we stop at red lights. We punish those who do not. If a red light "runner" causes a crash or hits a pedestrian, we can hold that "runner" responsible for the harm that results from his lack of responsibility - his carelessness and negligence - in a courtroom. 

College Education in the US was, like most all of life in the country, turned upside down in a matter of days by the Covid 19 pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of students, looking forward to Spring on the quadrangle or other favorite campus hangouts were told to pack up and leave all student housing in a hurry. Classroom learning changed rapidly to online learning. All activities, sports and travel slammed to a halt. 

The most recent data breach potentially exposing user information is coming out of California-based genetic testing laboratory, Ambry Genetics.  In accordance with HIPPA Breach Notification Rule, Ambry Genetics published a notice on their website announcing the potential exposure of personal health information (PHI) of 233,000 customers. 

I have been in the long-term care industry for almost 25 years. I have been a volunteer, a public policy advocate, an elder law legal services attorney, and a trial attorney with a practice focused for the last 10 years on litigation against nursing homes and long-term care facilities for abuse and neglect throughout New Jersey. With that background, I have been asked by many for my thoughts on the crippled status of the long-term care industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Congratulations to Associate Victoria Schall, who was selected to the 2020 New Jersey Rising Stars list. This is Tori’s 4th year on the list. (Rising Stars is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations. – superlawyers.com).

Congratulations to Partner Karl Friedrichs, who was selected to the 2020 New Jersey Super Lawyers list. This is Karl’s 4th year on the list. (Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations. – superlawyers.com).