Mae C. Quinn

About the Author

Professor Mae C. Quinn is an expert in criminal and juvenile justice system issues. Her past writing has explored a wide-range of important legal topics, including the modern problem-solving court movement, holistic criminal defense advocacy, public citizen lawyering, and applied feminist legal theory and history. She continues to research legal and ethical issues facing defense counsel, as well as the role of women lawyers in historic and contemporary legal movements. Her scholarship has been published widely in law reviews, and she is currently working on two books―one relating to feminist legal realism, the other focusing on the legacy of Judge Anna Moscowitz Kross. In addition to her scholarship and classroom teaching, Professor Quinn co-directs the school’s Civil Justice Clinic, where she developed a youth advocacy curriculum and supervises clinic students on juvenile delinquency and education law cases. The past recipient of awards recognizing excellence in teaching and professional achievement, she also previously received a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant to assist in clinical legal education and juvenile justice efforts in Honduras. Before becoming a law professor, she clerked for the Hon. Jack B. Weinstein, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York; served as an associate counsel focusing on federal white-collar criminal cases with the New York City firm of Morvillo, Abramowitz; and represented hundreds of indigent criminal defendants as a public defender and appellate counsel, personally briefing and arguing approximately 40 reported criminal appeals.

Publication in RLSC: From Turkey Trot to Twitter: Policing Puberty, Purity, and Sex-Positivity, 38 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 51 (2014).

 

Megan Annitto

About the Author

Professor Annitto’s expertise is in the areas of criminal procedure and juvenile justice. Her research focuses on the role of age and youth in the criminal justice system, such as the effects of youth on legal questions of consent, waiver of rights, and rehabilitation. She has previously written about the prosecution of minors for prostitution, advocating for a more legally coherent and rational approach by courts and legislatures. She has also written about the dramatic absence of access to appeals for juveniles charged with crimes and its effect on access to justice and the development of the law. Her articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Yale Law and Policy Review, University of Miami Law Review, and the New York University Review of Law and Social Change. Her work has also been included in the National Juvenile Defender Center Leadership Summit Resource Guide. Her research can be accessed here.

As a public defender for juveniles at the Legal Aid Society of New York, Professor Annitto represented numerous youth, specializing in issues common for young females in the juvenile justice system. She also advocated for community based alternatives to detention. Later, as a legislative attorney, she continued to focus on improving conditions and services for vulnerable youth in New York. Before joining Charlotte School of Law, Professor Annitto was the Director of the Center for Law and Public Service at the West Virginia University College of Law. She previously served as a law clerk to Judge Anne E. Thompson, United States District Court in the District of New Jersey. Following her clerkship, she worked at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University before becoming a public defender. Professor Annitto received her law degree and Master of Social Work from the Catholic University of America where she graduated magna cum laude. She received a B.A. from Boston College.

Professor Annitto remains active in juvenile justice issues and was appointed in 2011 by the Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court to serve on a state commission to review conditions of confinement and rehabilitation. She is also a Policy Advisor to the Polaris Project in Washington, D.C. on legislative issues related to trafficking of minors and has served as a Board Member of the Mid Atlantic Juvenile Defender Center (a subsidiary of the National Juvenile Defender Center).

Publication in RLSC: Consent Searches of Minors, 38 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 1 (2014).

Announcement: The New Frontier of the Fight Against Pregnancy Discrimination

Earlier this month, the California State Legislature asked upcoming RLSC author Mary Ann Mason, Ph.D., to testify on Assembly Bill No. 2350, an Assembly amendment requiring all institutions of higher education—public colleges and universities—to comply with the Title IX prohibitions on pregnancy discrimination. After considering, among other things, Dr. Mason’s research on women in STEM career paths, as well as an advance copy of her article, Title IX and Pregnancy Discrimination: The New Frontier (co-written with Jaclyn Younger, forthcoming in issue 38.2), the legislature passed the amendment unanimously.

This amendment provides for significant new protections, including a requirement that postsecondary educational institutions to allow graduate students, if they so choose, to take leaves of absence of at least 2 academic terms because they are pregnant or have recently given birth, unless there is a medical reason for a longer absence. The amendment also requires that these students be given at least 12 additional months to prepare for and take preliminary and qualifying examinations and an extension of at least 12 months toward normative time to degree while they are in candidacy for a graduate degree, unless a longer extension is medically necessary.

Check back soon to read this exciting article!

 

 

Diversity and Disgrace – How the U.S. News Law School Rankings Hurt Everyone

Image Credit: James Sarmiento via Flickr

By Tony Varona[*] Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at the American University Washington College of Law

U.S. News and World Report recently released its law school rankings[1] and, as happens every year, readers have focused almost exclusively on the many extreme fluctuations in ranks. Why did Schools A, B and C suddenly jump 20 spots? Did the learning experience at Schools X, Y and Z really erode so dramatically as to justify their 25-spot freefall? What will this big drop (or climb) mean for student and faculty recruitment, and alumni employment rates, at these schools?