Podcast

PODCAST: The Hon. Gary Stein on Justice for Sale, his Biography of Martin T. Manton

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Few lawyers know who Martin Manton was.  Even fewer, if any, law students learn about Manton while in school.  That may change with the Hon. Gary Stein’s recent biography of Manton, Justice for Sale: Graft, Greed, and a Crooked Federal Judge in 1930s Gotham.  (See Justice for Sale: Graft, Greed, and a Crooked Federal Judge in 1930s Gotham: Stein, Gary: 9781493072569: Amazon.com: Books)

Judge Stein tells the history of Judge Manton’s rapid rise – President Woodrow Wilson appointed Manton, then 36-years old, to the federal district court in 1916, then elevated him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit two years later.  As a judge, Manton continued to be involved in a number of businesses, including real estate ventures on which he had given mortgages.  During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Manton desperately needed money and turned to selling his office, repeatedly soliciting payments from lawyers and litigants arguing cases before him.  Judge Stein calculates that Manton received improper payments of about $823,000 – about $17 million today.  Ultimately, in 1939, Manton was publicly exposed.  This led to his resignation, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment.        
As Judge Stein discusses with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, the story of Manton’s corrupt conduct on the bench is an extraordinary tale.  Manton was friends with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, served on the Second Circuit with, among others, the Hon. Learned Hand, and nearly was appointed to the United States Supreme Court in the 1920s.  This may seem like ancient history, but Judge Stein’s book reminds us that judges – even federal judges – are human, subject to the same flaws and foibles as the rest of us.  That is a timely lesson that is still instructive today.

Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.   

Our guest today is Magistrate Judge Gary Stein.

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PODCAST: A Discussion with Nicole E. Osborne on Data Breaches and her Role as a Cybersecurity Attorney

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Cybercrime has become a topic of discussion in the last few years. In this week’s Touro Law Review podcast moderated by Associate Dean Michelle Zakarin, Nicole E. Osborne joins us. Nicole is an Associate at the Law Firm of Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, P.C. and is a member of the firm’s Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Practice Group. Nicole gives advice to students who are interested in this practice area. She noted that there are a lot of traditional practice areas that lend themselves perfectly to a career in cybersecurity, such as health care law. 

The law of cybersecurity, Nicole states, is unpredictable; everyday is different as it is an interdisciplinary area of law. She then dives into the specifics of data breaches– something Nicole deals with frequently and is very passionate about. She follows by discussing the importance of addressing these issues quickly and the different laws and regulations of each state, as well as federal legislation that might come into play. As the conversation continues, Nicole discuses, threat actors, ransomware, and “double extortion.” Nicole also discusses the documents typically stolen by threat actors and ways to avoid breaches. Notably, she provides generally applicable tips and recommendations for all businesses because threat actors target small businesses just as much as large companies. 


As a parting note, Nicole reminds us that this area is evolving rapidly and that it is very important to stay on top of these laws, even if it seems difficult. 

 

Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.   

Our guest today is Nicole E. Osborne, Esq.

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PODCAST: A Conversation with Magistrate Judge James M. Wicks

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United States Magistrate Judges play a vital role in the operation of the federal courts. In this week’s Touro Law Review podcast, Magistrate Judge James M. Wicks discusses why he became a federal magistrate judge, the process for applying and being selected, and his various responsibilities for criminal and civil cases in the Eastern District of New York.

Judge Wicks was inspired, in substantial part, by his clerkship with the Hon. Arthur Spatt and becoming a judge was a “calling” for him. As Judge Wicks explains, the selection process for a federal magistrate is thorough and lengthy, entailing a written application, panel interviews, and an FBI background investigation. In the last part of the discussion with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, Judge Wicks describes his work on criminal and civil cases and provides guidance for attorneys on how to navigate a familiar challenge in civil litigation – discovery disputes – and offers some thoughts on how artificial intelligence (AI) may affect the practice of law.

   

Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.   

Our guest today is Magistrate Judge James M. Wicks.

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PODCAST: The Cases Pending Against Former President Donald J. Trump with Thane Rosenbaum

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When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question,” he surely could not have anticipated all of the pending legal cases against former President Donald Trump. Nevertheless, here we are nearly two centuries later, with four criminal prosecutions and one civil case pending and another civil case likely to be filed soon against Trump.  

Thane Rosenbaum, Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, joins us on the Touro Law Review Podcast to help make sense of the legal cases against Trump.  After describing the cases, Rosenbaum explains to Associate Dean Rodger Citron what he finds problematic about each one.  The conversation focuses on the four criminal cases:  the New York “hush money” case; the federal classified documents case in Florida; the federal January 6 case pending in Washington, D.C.; and the Georgia election interference case.  

Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.   

Our guest today is Professor Thane Rosenbaum.

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PODCAST: A Discussion with Associate Professor and Associate Dean Tiffany C. Graham regarding her role on the New York State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

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This Podcast featured Associate Professor and Associate Dean Tiffany C. Graham regarding her role on the New York State Advisory Committee (“Committee”) to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (“Commission”). Professor Zablotsky moderated this podcast, where he asked Professor Graham questions about her role and work on the Committee, which led to a discussion of the racial disparities that Black families face in the child welfare system. Professor Graham started her discussion of her journey to academia, which occurred when she realized quickly private practice was not her passion but rather, she wished to join a student environment. Professor Graham taught in California, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and now is teaching in New York. When in South Dakota, she was a faculty member and the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of South Dakota School of Law.  Throughout her time in that state, she had the ability to work on various civil rights issues, in particular those related to matters impacting the LGBTQIA+ community.  While there, she also served as the chair of the South Dakota Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, where she was leading a project focused on maternal mortality rates for Native American women before resigning to take her current  position at Touro Law Center, which was followed by a recommendation to take a spot on the New York advisory committee. 

When she first joined the New York Committee, it decided to study racial disparities in eviction. Most recently, the Committee has been focusing on racial disparities in the foster care system.  Professor Graham noted the importance of looking at the problems in the child welfare system that exist in New York City – where they are acute – as well as throughout the state to fully understand the situation. She was clear and concise about one of the biggest obstacles that Black families face — they are often subjected to over-surveillance under harsh circumstances that derive from implicit and explicit biases. She then laid out the empirical information that the Committee learned from the witnesses who testified before them. Finally, Professor Graham spoke about the major pushback on the discrimination issues and that these problems were not created overnight. Rather, they were created throughout the centuries. She urged that, even though we have made great strides in eliminating discriminatory practices, society must continue to work on eliminating the structural inequalities that impact our institutions to ensure that they do not reproduce the harms of inequality that have existed in our communities. Professor Graham ended the podcast by asking listeners to pay attention and try to become aware of what is happening under the surface that we may not necessarily see but nonetheless exist. 

Professor Graham expects the Committee’s Report to be released at some point next year.

Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.   

Our guest today is Associate Professor and Associate Dean Tiffany C. Graham.

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PODCAST: The Petitioner’s Path to Victory in the Supreme Court in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co.   

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As the Supreme Court’s 2022-23 term neared its conclusion, the Court issued an important personal jurisdiction decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co.  By a five to four vote, the Court rejected a Due Process Clause challenge to Pennsylvania’s corporate registration statute.  In Mallory, this meant upholding a Pennsylvania court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over a Virginia corporation that did business in Pennsylvania when the corporation was sued by a Virginia citizen for injuries that, he alleged, were caused by the corporation’s conduct outside of Pennsylvania.    

Ashley Keller represented Robert Mallory, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, in the Supreme Court.  In this podcast, Keller discusses with Associate Dean Rodger Citron how he came to take the case, his strategy for getting the Supreme Court to grant certiorari and presenting original public meaning (or originalist) arguments in defense of the Pennsylvania statute, and why he was surprised that Justice Gorsuch ended up drafting the Court’s plurality opinion.  As Keller explains, Mallory is an important case for a number of reasons, including the fact that it shows that plaintiffs may array original public meaning arguments to support their view of the law.      

Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.   

Our guest today is Ashley Keller, Esq.

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PODCAST: A Conversation about the Hon. Irving R. Kaufman with His Biographer

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Lawyer and author Martin J. Siegel discusses his biography of the Hon. Irving R. Kaufman on this week’s Touro Law Review podcast.  Kaufman is most well-known today for having presided over the Cold War espionage case of United States v. Rosenberg, in which Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple, were charged with conspiring to share atomic secrets with the Soviet Union, found guilty by the jury, and sentenced to death by Judge Kaufman in 1951.  Two years later, after numerous appeals, the United States executed the Rosenbergs.   

Siegel’s biography shows that there was more to Kaufman’s life than the infamous Rosenberg trial. Kaufman, the son of Jewish immigrants, was able and ambitious.  His appointment to the federal bench in 1949, at the age of 39, was an extraordinary accomplishment. No less interesting is that after President Kennedy appointed him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961, Kaufman became one of the more liberal judges on that court.  Nonetheless, even today, the Rosenberg case casts a long shadow over Kaufman’s judicial legacy.       

As Siegel discusses with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, the author benefited from the cooperation of Kaufman’s family while writing the book, enabling him to shed light on the judge’s personal life.  The podcast concludes with Siegel sharing his thoughts on the relevance of biography in understanding how judges decide cases and, accordingly, how the law develops through judicial decision-making.

   

Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.   

Our guest today is Professor Martin J. Siegel.

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