ProBono Scholars<br/>

 

Seven students participated as inaugural participants in the newly established ProBono Scholars Program. The program, initiated by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, allows students in their final year of law school to devote their last semester of study to performing pro bono services for the poor through an approved externship program, law school clinic, legal services provider, law firm or corporation. Selected students spend 12 weeks working full time in a pro bono placement, during which they also complete an academic component at the law school. As a benefit of the program, participants were permitted to take the New York bar exam in February of their final year before graduation.

 

Darren Stakey stated, “"Participating in the Pro Bono Scholars Program has been a transformative experience and one of the most rewarding challenges of my law school career. The program bridges the gap between theoretical legal analysis in the classroom and practical application in the courtroom. It allows pending graduates to engage in a level of student practice that is far more intensive than that encountered in a typical legal internship or clinical program. But, more than that, being a Pro Bono Scholar instills a sense of humility and purpose in its participants. The access to justice crisis in America grows larger every day, and through New York's pioneer program, my colleagues and I have been able to affect real lives and to make a difference. Through my participation, I have been able to help prevent two evictions and to postpone many more; to help protect battered domestic partners and negotiate child visitation; to stay a foreclosure; to address an executor's misappropriations; and even to reunite a mother with her child. By helping no and low-income clients to try and change their lives, my own life has been changed in turn. And so, wherever my professional career takes me, because of the Pro Bono Scholars Program, public service will always be a part of my practice."

 

Touro Law Inaugural ProBono Scholars and their placements:

Paige Bartholomew - Barket, Marion, Epstein & Kearon, LLP- Innocence Project

Matthew Gamberg- Greenblatt & Agulnick, P.C. – Where he specifically worked on Sandy Disaster Relief

Daniela Giordano - Suffolk County Legal Aid in the Children’s Law Bureau

Matthew Hromadka - Nassau/Suffolk Law Services

Christopher Miner - Federal Defenders of NY Inc.

Darren Stakey -Nassau/Suffolk Law Services Committee, Inc.

Touro Law wishes a special congratulations to all of our ProBono Scholars who ALL passed the New York State Bar Exam!