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Spencer Pepper L'11, Emily Stopa GR’11 L’11, Robert Cooper L'12, Matthew McFeeley L'11, Lou Rulli, Anthony Shaskus L'11, Altin Sila L'11, Katherine Andrews L'11, and Grace Sur L'11

As just one demonstration of the ways in which Penn Law’s Legislative Clinic bridges theory and practice, this academic year the Clinic’s students had their final class in Washington, D.C. – in Vice President Joe Biden's conference room at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, meeting with Law School alumni well versed in the Capitol’s legislative affairs.

On May 5, 2011, Clinic students, led by Louis Rulli, Practice Professor of Law and Director of Clinical Programs at Penn Law, closed out the semester on Capitol Hill with an enlightening discussion of inside tips on legislative advocacy in the U.S. Senate, and received valuable career advice from four legislative staff veterans:  Nicole Isaac L’04, Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs for Vice President Biden;  Drew Littman L’85, Chief of Staff to Senator Al Franken; Alyson Cooke L’ 89, Majority Counsel on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee; and Martin Paone, Executive Vice President of Prime Policy Group and former Democratic Secretary in the Senate. 

“I learned a great deal from the panelists, particularly about what it takes to become a successful staffer on the Hill,” said Spencer Pepper L‘11. “Encouragingly, the speakers highlighted their Penn Law education as one of the keys to their success. For me, the D.C. class was the culmination of a fun and exciting experience working at the House Budget Committee and my semester as a student in the Legislative Clinic.”

The Legislative Clinic at Penn Law is one of only a handful of legislative clinical programs in the nation devoted exclusively to legislative lawyering and the formation of public policy. Students get first-hand experience through their work at federal legislative placements, as well as through coursework readings and discussions, simulations, and legislative drafting exercises in the classroom.

During the course of the semester, students balanced out a weekly seminar at Penn Law with travel to Washington D.C. two days each week to work, through externships, on legislative matters at the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Finance Committee, and House Budget Committee, and in the offices of elected members such as U.S. Senators Robert Casey, Frank Lautenberg, and Jack Reed, and Representatives Gregory Meeks, Christopher Murphy, and Diana DeGette. 

After this year’s final class on Capitol Hill, Biden senior staff member Nicole Isaac conducted a tour of the Vice President's ceremonial office in the Capitol for the students before they returned to Philadelphia.

“The final class was a great close to a busy and exciting semester in which Penn students contributed significantly to the work of Congress, while also experiencing first-hand many difficult challenges inherent in the legislative arena,” stated Professor Rulli.

“For me, the meeting was a chance to hear about how to build a successful career in Washington from those who have done it, and to connect with Penn Law alumni who are ready and willing to help those of us who are about to graduate,” said Matthew McFeeley L’11. “I spent the semester working in the offices of a Senate committee and it was interesting [in this final class] to see how our alumni used their legal education to comprehensively advise members of Congress - serving at once as political strategists, policy analysts, procedural experts, negotiators, and legislative drafters.”

Grace Sur L’11, who served in an externship in Senator Lautenberg’s office this semester, noted, “It was an amazing experience because it was a chance to learn firsthand how our federal government works.” Because each student in the Legislative Clinic had a unique experience working with Senators, Representatives, or for Congressional committees, “we each brought a very interesting and different perspective to the table when we discussed different issues related to Congress, such as how to draft legislation and what the role of a lawyer is on the Hill.”

For Emily Stopa GR’11 L’11 it was “a privilege” to talk with Penn Law alumni working at high levels in Washington, and “to hear about the joys, triumphs, and life-long relationships that come with the career, as well as the disappointments and sacrifices. The meeting definitely gave me a more well-rounded perspective on the life of a Congressional staffer, and underscored the advantages of having a thorough understanding of the legislative process."

The Clinic’s externships provide a range of educational experiences, such as learning how the Cloak room works or how different Senators sign onto a resolution or proposal.

“I learned the most from attending committee hearings and staff briefings and writing memos for my legislative aides,” Sur said. “For example, when [Senator Lautenberg’s] legislative aide for environmental issues took me through the process of proposing a bill and promoting it in committee, I was amazed at how much work went into the process. It was also incredible to see how strategic members of Congress have to be, from the very words he or she used in a one-page Dear Colleague letter to garner co-sponsors, to the timing of presenting an issue or bill in committee.”

Anthony Shaskus L‘11, who interned in the office of Congressman Murphy, found that he “developed a firm understanding for the inner workings of Congress,” he said, and “made relationships that will carry on long after.”

For Altin Sila L‘11, his legislative experience brought the unexpected. “I had some amazing experiences that I didn’t expect. I sat feet away from people like Ben Bernanke, Mike Mullen, and Robert Gates as they testified at hearings, and I was able to meet Justice Breyer and the Turkish Ambassador to the United States. The staff gave me assignments they thought were substantive and thought to include me on meetings and events they thought I would find interesting.”

Altin added: “I feel that I have made some great contacts that will help me accomplish that. This has been a great way to conclude my legal education and begin my career, and I’m truly grateful for the opportunities that the Clinic afforded me.”

Doug Penrose L'11, Matthew McFeeley L'11, Katherine Andrews L'11, Emily Stopa GR’11 L’11, Drew Littman L'85, Alyson Cooke L'89, Nicole Isaac L'04, Martin Paone, Altin Sila L'11, Robert Cooper L'12, Grace Sur L'11, Anthony Shaskus L'11, and Spencer Pepper L'11

Over 700 Penn Law alums and their guests participated in Alumni Weekend 2011 on May 13 and 14, visiting campus and catching up with classmates and friends.
 
The Senior Partners Society, a group of alumni from the class of 1960 and earlier, met on Friday morning for the group’s annual luncheon in Biddle Law Library. Following lunch, the group previewed a video clip of the Senior Partners Oral History Project, an ongoing venture designed to collect and archive memories from alumni throughout the history of the Law School.
 
Two interesting and very different CLE panels were presented on Friday afternoon in Gittis Hall. Key legal issues in major league baseball was the topic for the first panel, which featured Marvin Goldklang, W’63, L’66, Ed Weiss, L’91 and Professor Christopher Yoo, while Alan Beller, L’76, Robert Hoyt, L’89, Heath Tarbert, L’01 and Professor David Skeel took up Financial Reform and Dodd Frank in the second panel.
 
Individual classes held cocktail receptions on Friday night throughout the Law School and in various locations in center city Philadelphia. The Saturday morning family picnic, held in the Goat this year due to inclement weather, was nonetheless a big success.
 
The highlight of the weekend was the Reunion Gala, held this year at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for all reunion classes. A record-breaking 585 Penn Law alums and their guests were treated to cocktails in the Great Hall while enjoying music by the Brazilian band, Minas, a seated dinner in the museum’s beautiful galleries, and a chance to meet and celebrate reunions with many generations of Penn Law alumni. After experiencing his first reunion, Class of 2006 president Thomas Williams said he felt as if he had been welcomed into a family and was no longer just a graduate of the school.
 
For those of you who want to remember the Weekend, and for those who were unable to attend and want to get a sense of what occurred, please take a look at the terrific photo gallery and video.
 
We look forward to welcoming graduates from class years ending in 2’s and 7’s at Alumni Weekend 2012 on May 11 and 12. Please mark your calendars now! It’s never too early to make your plans.

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For their work on the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court Case Padilla v. Kentucky, Penn Law Professor Stephanos Bibas and Clinical Supervisor and Lecturer Yolanda Vázquez have received the 2011 Jack Wasserman Memorial Award from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Bibas and Vázquez were among a twelve-member team of pro bono attorneys selected for excellence in litigation in the field of immigration law for their work on Padilla. Students in Penn Law’s Supreme Court Clinic, which Bibas directs, also worked on the case. The Padilla team was presented with the award on June 16, 2011 during the AILA’s Annual Conference in San Diego, CA.

The AILA recognized the Padilla team for improving the rights for immigrants in the U.S. court system by successfully arguing to the Supreme Court that “criminal defense lawyers must advise their noncitizen clients about the risk of deportation if they accept a guilty plea.”

In announcing the award the AILA noted that in its opinion, the Supreme Court recognized that current immigration laws impose harsh and mandatory deportation consequences onto criminal convictions, a result of Congress’ 1996 decision to eliminate the Attorney General's discretionary authority to cancel removal in meritorious cases. "These changes to our immigration law have dramatically raised the stakes of a noncitizen's criminal conviction,” Justice Stevens wrote in the Court’s opinion. “The importance of accurate legal advice for noncitizens accused of crimes has never been more important."

The AILA stated in their announcement, “The litigation team took on this pro bono case as a labor of love, and brought about a result that has transformed the landscape of the rights of immigrants in our system.”

Bibas, the Director of Penn Law’s Supreme Court Clinic and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, is a leading scholar of criminal procedure with expertise in criminal charging, plea bargaining and sentencing. He studies the powers, incentives, information, and psychology that shape how prosecutors, defense counsel, defendants, and judges behave. Bibas has litigated a wide range of Supreme Court cases, both criminal and civil, and is writing a book (Assembly-Line Criminal Justice, Oxford, forthcoming 2011) on how criminal justice should do more to encourage acceptance of responsibility, remorse, apology, and forgiveness.

Vázquez, a former public defender in the District of Columbia and Chicago, is an expert on the intersection of immigration and criminal law and its impact on defendants, society, and the criminal justice system. Her research focuses on defense counsels’ duty to advise noncitizen defendants on the immigration consequences of a criminal conviction. Vázquez also studies the effect of the intersection of immigration and criminal law in the criminal justice system on Latinos, arguing that the incorporation of immigration law and enforcement into the criminal justice system has become the primary means to subordinate and socially marginalize Latinos living in the United States. She currently co-teaches in the Civil Practice Clinic in addition to teaching a Crimmigration seminar.

Penn Law’s Supreme Court Clinic is the nation’s first to closely integrate students’ practical experience on U.S. Supreme Court matters with a semester-long academic seminar on the workings of the Court. Students conduct research, draft briefs, and help prepare strategy; in the past two years Clinic students have worked on three Supreme Court cases that Clinic instructors argued on the merits, and many more as amici, co-counsel, or at the cert stage.

Founded in 1946, the AILA is a non-profit, national organization of over 11,000 attorneys and law professors who practice and teach immigration law. The Jack Wasserman Memorial Award was established by the AILA in 1980.

Additional members of the Padilla v. Kentucky litigation team include:

• Stephen B. Kinnaird, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, Washington, DC
• Timothy G. Arnold, Dept. of Public Advocacy, Frankfort, KY
• D. Scott Carlton, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, Los Angeles, CA
• Adam S. Cherensky, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, Los Angeles, CA
• Alexander M.R. Lyon, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, Palo Alto, CA
• Mitchell A. Mosvick, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, Washington, DC
• Richard E. Neal, U'Sellis & Kitchen, PLC, Louisville, KY
• Leeann N. Rosnick, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, Washington, DC
• Elizabeth Stevens, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, San Francisco, CA
• Norton Tooby , Law Offices of Norton Tooby, Oakland, CA

On Wednesday, June 15 Adam M. Finkel, Fellow and Executive Director of the Penn Program on Regulation, gave witness testimony at the House Small Business Committee's hearing, "Lifting the Weight of Regulations: Growing Jobs by Reducing Regulatory Burdens."

The hearing examined H.R. 527, the Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act of 2011, and H.R. 585, the Small Business Size Standard Flexibility Act of 2011. According to the House Committee on Small Business, "The two bills are designed to remove loopholes in the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA), and strengthen the power of the Office of the Chief Counsel for Advocacy."

Video: Adam Finkel's Opening Statement

Video: Adam Finkel Responds to Questioning by Congresswoman Renee Ellmers (R-NC)

Video: Adam Finkel Responds to Comments and Questioning by Congressman Jeff Landry (R-LA)

Video: Adam Finkel Responds to Questions from House Committee on Small Business Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO)

Watch the Complete Hearing
Additional Information About This Hearing
RegBlog: House Committee Debates Effects of Regulation on Small Business

Infusion of funds allows the Law School to guarantee students summer funding for public interest work

Jane Toll GSE’66 and Robert Toll L’66.

The University of Pennsylvania Law School has received a $2.5 million gift from Robert Toll L'66 and Jane Toll GSE'66, which will enable the School to expand its existing public interest programs by supporting an array of student pro bono initiatives that has doubled in the past three years, guaranteeing summer funding to hundreds of students annually who engage in public interest related work, and supporting a generous loan repayment program for which the demand has increased 50 percent in recent years.

Mr. Toll, Executive Chairman of the Board of Toll Brothers, Inc., the leading builder of luxury homes, and his wife Jane have been strong supporters of the Law School and its public interest programs. The Tolls' most recent gift will fund ongoing loan forgiveness programs, internships and fellowships, pro bono service projects, and scholarship in the field of public interest.

"The Tolls have been major benefactors in the creation and the expansion of public interest programs at Penn Law," said Michael A. Fitts, Dean of Penn Law. "This gift provides a new infusion of funds in the midst of an economic downturn that will provide the Law School with additional means to increase our support for students and alumni pursuing public interest careers."

"It's my hope that graduates of Penn Law will run public interest organizations and significant departments, agencies, councils, etc. of our government, bringing our uniquely educated students to positions of leadership in the near future," said Mr. Toll.

Penn Law founded its public interest center in 1989 and renamed it the Toll Public Interest Center (TPIC) in 2006 in acknowledgement of a $10 million gift from the Tolls, which allowed the School to significantly expand the Center's activities. Today, TPIC is a multifaceted, cross-disciplinary program whose mission is to provide Law School students with meaningful opportunities to provide pro bono legal service to under-represented communities.

A national leader in promoting public interest and pro bono legal service, Penn Law is the first top-ranked law school to establish a mandatory pro bono requirement and the first law school to win the American Bar Association's Pro Bono Publico Award. In promoting the culture of public service at the Law School, TPIC is a locus for extensive pro bono and public interest programs at Penn.

These programs include more than twenty pro bono projects in which students represent clients in a variety of fields and cases, including civil rights, environmental justice, family law, governmental practice, health law, immigration, international human rights, labor law, women's rights, and youth law.

Each year through these projects, and in partnership with legal service providers and government agencies nationwide, more than 500 students engage in tens of thousands of hours of service. In the past three years students have contributed over 30,000 hours of pro bono service for disadvantaged clients.

Since the Tolls' initial gift in 2006, each year hundreds of students have received financial support through the Law School and TPIC for unpaid summer internships in the public sector; for example, this past year 60 percent of Penn Law 1Ls received such funding. With the Tolls' most recent gift, the Center is now able to guarantee summer funding for students. The Center also provides funding for spring break service projects, such as projects this year in Jordan and Kenya.

Penn Law provides its alumni who engage in public interest work loan repayment assistance through TollRAP, a generous Loan Repayment and Assistance Program (LRAP). All alumni who engage in public interest legal work are eligible for assistance. The amount of assistance is based on a formula that considers the applicant's income and annual law school debt.

The 2006 gift also enabled the Law School to expand the Law School's Public Interest Scholars Program, which funds full scholarships in the first year and two-thirds scholarships in the second and third years for students committed to practicing in the public sector. Since the Program's inception, Toll Scholars have obtained leading public interest fellowships, such as Skadden and the Independence Foundation Fellowships; and have joined government and advocacy organizations such as the Department of Justice, the ACLU, and the NAACP-LDF.

The Toll Public Interest Center hosts a myriad of public interest-related events each year, including Penn Law's annual Public Interest Week, which includes an Honorary Fellow-in-Residence program that brings powerful public interest advocates such as Stephen Bright and Nan Aaron to campus, as well as the Edward V. Sparer Symposium.

In addition, each year the Center awards five competitive post-graduate fellowships to support Penn Law graduating students or recent alumni in their pursuit of public interest careers. Fellows design their own public interest projects and work with partnering non-profit organizations locally, nationally, or internationally – ranging from the Philadelphia Juvenile Law Center to the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C. – on both impact and direct advocacy for underrepresented causes and populations.

"Thanks to the generosity of the Tolls, we have literally been able to double our student initiatives over the past several years," said Arlene Finkelstein, executive director of TPIC. "As a result, all students at Penn Law are able to engage in a wide range of meaningful pro bono opportunities that offer tremendous hands-on experience, while providing service to the community at a time of tremendous need."

Finkelstein added: "Likewise, the Law School has been able to expand the funding and resources we offer aspiring public interest lawyers to best prepare for careers in service – while also supporting our graduates with generous loan repayment assistance that enables them to embrace public interest advocacy despite their law school debt."

Mr. Toll has been a member of the Law School's Board of Overseers since 1992 and has served repeatedly as guest auctioneer for the Penn Law's Equal Justice Foundation Auction. He is a former member of the Penn Board of Trustees and currently serves on the board of directors of Cornell Real Estate School; Seeds of Peace, which he and his wife Jane cofounded; and Beth Shalom Synagogue. He is also a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera. Toll Brothers is the sponsor of the Saturday broadcast over the Toll Brothers Metropolitan Opera Network heard round the world.

For more information about public interest programs at Penn Law, please visit www.law.upenn.edu/pic.

Penn Law's business and corporate law faculty have dominated the 17th annual poll of the "Top Ten Corporate and Securities Articles of 2010," recently conducted by Corporate Practice Commentator. Articles by Professors William Bratton, Jill Fisch, Edward Rock, David Skeel, and Michael Wachter were among the top ten selected by corporate and securities law academics, which were chosen from more than 440 published and indexed in legal journals in 2010.

“Like last year, Penn Law was the first in the number of faculty publishing top ten business and corporate law articles, and I congratulate our five Penn Law professors on this achievement,” said Michael A. Fitts, Dean of Penn Law. “The Law School’s business and corporate law program is unrivaled among our peers. This latest accomplishment is indicative of our faculty’s expertise, for the benefit of Penn Law and the wider world.”

	William Bratton and co-author Michael Wachter’s article, The Case Against Shareholder Empowerment, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Bratton, a Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Law School’s Institute for Law and Economics (ILE), is recognized internationally as a leading writer on business law. Wachter, the William B. Johnson Prof. of Law and Economics and ILE Co-Director, is a prominent cross-disciplinary scholar with current research focusing on topics of the intersection of corporate law and finance. In their article, the authors argue that empowering shareholders of public companies only enforces company management to maximize the market price of its stock. The goal to increase shareholder value was one of the major causes of the global financial crisis. In short, the authors claim shareholders seek short-term returns rather than focusing on long-term company value.
	Jill Fisch is a Professor of Law and Co-Director of ILE whose work focuses on the intersection of business and law, including the role of regulation and litigation in addressing limitations in the disciplinary power of the capital markets. Fisch and co-authors Stephen Choi and Marcel Kahan, both professors at New York University School of Law, were acknowledged for The Power of Proxy Advisors: Myth or Reality?, published by Emory Law Journal. The article focuses on the role of proxy advisors and how they influence shareholder voting outcomes.
	Edward Rock L’83, the Saul A. Fox Distinguished Professor of Business Law, writes on corporate law and corporate governance. His article, Embattled CEOs, co-authored with NYU’s Marcel Kahan in the Texas Law Review, addresses the declining power of chief executive officers of publicly-held corporations in the United States to their boards of directors and to their shareholders.
	David Skeel, the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law, writes on bankruptcy and corporate law and his article, Bankruptcy or bailouts?, co-authored with Kenneth Ayotte of Northwestern University School of Law for the Journal of Corporation Law, explores why bankruptcy would often be a better solution to the financial distress of large financial firms than the bailouts the government has used throughout the financial crisis. The authors highlight that although bankruptcy is not always the optimal response to financial distress, Chapter 11 is can be more effective than generally realized.

In addition, Penn Law Adjunct Professor of Law Leo Strine L'88 was selected for his article Loyalty's Core Demand: The Defining Role of Good Faith in Corporation Law for the Georgetown Law Journal, co-authored with Lawrence Hamermesh of Widener University School of Law, R. Franklin Balotti of Richards, Layton & Finger, and Jeffery Gorris of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell, Attorneys At Law. The authors explore the role of good faith in corporate law, and question the duty of loyalty, and argue if the obligation of directors to act in good faith is a separate, free-standing fiduciary duty or a fundamental aspect of the core duty of loyalty.

On March 2 Professor Stephen Morse presented on Criminal Responsibility and Sentencing at The Raymond & Beverly Sackler U.S.A.-U.K. Scientific Forum at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. The theme for the 2011 forum was "Neuroscience and the Law."

Click image to play video.

Professor Morse is introduced by Judge Gerard Lynch, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. His presentation begins at the 6:14 mark. Watch Professor Morse's presentation.

About Professor Stephen J. Morse
Stephen Morse, the Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry, is a renowned expert in criminal and mental health law who focuses on individual responsibility in criminal and civil law.

By Greg Johnson. Reprinted from the Penn Current.

David L. Cohen L'81 Photo by Peter Tobia

Through the years, Philadelphians have used a number of different adjectives and phrases to describe one of the city’s most high-profile and powerful adopted sons, David L. Cohen, including “level-headed,” “straight-forward,” “structured,” “disciplined,” the “calm in the eye of the storm,” a “stickler for details,” “savvy,” “tough” and a “methodical orchestrator.” But encountering him in person brings a different word to mind—unassuming. (Even his office inside the sleek Comcast high rise is unpretentious.)

Cohen is a big deal. He is chairman of the Board of Trustees of one of the world’s most prestigious universities, executive vice president of one of the world’s leading media, entertainment and communication companies and the former chairman of one of the country’s largest law firms. Yet he is also immensely approachable and dismayed that anybody might think otherwise.

A 1977 graduate of Swarthmore College, where he triple majored in political science, history and economics, and a 1981 alumnus of Penn Law School, Cohen is chairman of the Penn Board of Trustees, executive vice president of Comcast Corporation and formerly the chairman of Ballard Spahr.

He was a top legal prospect fresh out of Penn Law, where he graduated summa cum laude and served as executive editor of the Penn Law Review. He was recruited by a host of high-powered law firms before deciding to join Ballard Spahr.

In the late 1980s, Cohen served as press secretary and campaign manager to Ed Rendell, and became Rendell’s chief of staff when he was elected mayor in 1991.

Many scribes, when writing about Cohen, reference Buzz Bissinger’s 1997 book, A Prayer for the City. Cohen and Rendell are the main protagonists of the story, which meticulously details Rendell’s first term as mayor.

As Mayor Rendell worked to save the city from bankruptcy, revitalize its image and wrestle with its powerful unions, Chief of Staff Cohen was right by his side, crisis by crisis, success by success, failure by failure. Some have even labeled him the “co-mayor” of the city, a title he would most assuredly reject.

Cohen left city government in 1997 to become chairman of Ballard Spahr, and then joined Comcast in 2002.

The Penn Current visited the 52nd floor of the Comcast Center to discuss Cohen’s passion for Penn, the strengths of the University, plutonium on commercial airplanes and some parting words of wisdom for the Class of 2011.

Q. Shortly after you were nominated to become chairman of the Board of Trustees in 2008, you told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Penn is your No. 1 passion, other than your family and your job. What does the University mean to you and why are you so passionate about it?
A. Almost everything I’ve been able to accomplish professionally has derived from my education, my undergraduate education at Swarthmore and my legal education at Penn. Then, if you think about what has happened to Penn over the last 15 to 20 years, the growth in its reputation, the growth in its impact on the community, a tremendous amount of that has been tied to an institutional, educational and philosophical strategy of building close ties with the community and becoming a visible and unbelievably important part of the Philadelphia community. A lot of that started at the time when I was chief of staff to Ed Rendell, and I got to see firsthand the incredible impact that Penn had on the Philadelphia community by its decisions to invest in the neighborhood, by a judgment made to change the relationship between the University and the neighborhood.

Obviously I care a lot about Philadelphia, and I think Penn deserves credit for being the private sector institution that proves that working together with the government in a public-private partnership can dramatically impact the quality of life in a neighborhood. Seeing my alma mater making that kind of a commitment to my city made me proud, and it made me recognize the very special people who were at Penn and the very special role that it could play in the life of the city and of the region.

It was in that period of time that I became engaged actively as a volunteer at Penn, first as a Trustee of multiple Health System and Medical School boards, and then ultimately as a University Trustee and then as chair of Penn Medicine and chair of the Trustees. That volunteer experience at the University only built on my commitment and passion for the University and for the impact that it could have, not only locally and regionally, but nationally and globally.

Q. What do you think are the University’s greatest strengths?
A. I’ll put them in a few categories. We start with the institution itself and its reputation in category one. It’s an institution that’s both the twin towers, if you will, of the pure University of Pennsylvania plus Penn Medicine bound together inextricably and working together to advance the interests of the University as a whole.

Category two is the leadership. In Amy Gutmann, I think we have the best university president in the country. She defines an incredible vision with an incredible ability to execute, to attract high-quality staff because it’s not just about Amy, it’s about her senior staff and the people she’s attracted. On the academic side, I think Penn has enormous strength because of the deans and faculty and provost.
The last category is the students. As Trustees, whenever we have a presentation, the only thing that is more powerful than hearing from our faculty is hearing from our students. They never fail to blow us away with their maturity, their incredible complexity, how well-rounded they are, their intelligence. If you take all that together, it’s a powerful enterprise.

I think the other great strength of the University is the vision that our last two presidents have articulated. I think as a university in Penn’s current positioning, we have exactly the right goals and we have momentum towards each one of those goals. The goal of improving access to education couldn’t be more relevant and couldn’t be more important. And there is the goal of local, national and global engagement. Our philosophical approach to collaboration across schools, between the University and Penn Medicine being a huge example, with the Penn Integrates Knowledge professors as the centerpiece of an institutionalized focus on encouraging and facilitating faculty in different schools, deans in different schools, students attending different schools to work together, and to have an integrated and collaborative educational enterprise. I think it is a powerful vision that is being executed brilliantly and that has created enormous momentum for the school going forward.

Q. Is it true that at Penn Law your nickname was ‘Chief Justice Cohen’ because of your legal intellect?
A. I can’t figure out whether that is true or not. I’ve read it before, so it’s been reported. I’m not sure I ever remember anyone calling me ‘Chief Justice Cohen,’ but maybe it was whispered behind my back, or maybe it was a little bit of revisionist history. I have my 30th law school reunion this year so I’ve actually spent some time recently thinking about my classmates. It was still a time when a reasonable percentage of the class, probably 20 percent or so, stayed in Philadelphia. Many of them are still my best friends in life. As a class, we do a pretty good job of staying in touch with each other.

It’s another good hallmark of Penn, the ties that bind students and alumni together. But I’d be honored if anyone in my class today thought that I deserved that nickname because there were a lot of smart people in my class and a lot of people who are incredibly accomplished and have been incredibly successful.

Q. Your wife, Rhonda, told the Inquirer that you ‘slept half the day, often through lunch’ while at Swarthmore and your famous work ethic didn’t really kick in until you came to Penn Law.
A. Well, it was a little bit of a different body clock. I’d also stay up until 4 o’clock in the morning. Actually, in fairness, I think whatever my work ethic is, it really didn’t kick in until after I started practicing law. But it is true. I am up very early now. But in college, I lived a standard college student life. I did have to set an alarm to make sure I’d be up for lunch on the weekend, but I might have stayed up till 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning before turning in.

Q. Why did you choose to triple major at Swarthmore?
A. I always knew I wanted a liberal arts education because I was curious about a lot of different things, so a triple major was perfect. And there’s a lot of relationship between those three, it wasn’t like it was physics, the classics and political science. Political science, history and economics I think in some ways are the guts of a liberal arts education, or certainly all important components of the guts of a liberal arts education.

Q. You have said you wanted to be a lawyer ever since you were 3 years old. Why have you always had an interest in the law?
A. It’s one of those questions that you sort of don’t know the answer to. My grandfather, my father’s father, was a lawyer and judge. Even though he died when I was 4 years old, my parents tell me that when I was young, I always gravitated to him and him to me. He was also actively involved in politics. I loved every day of practicing law. I think that being a lawyer is probably more an encapsulation of things that I like to do. Being intellectually curious, I like to learn everything you can possibly learn about a particular subject. I like to debate and argue and advocate. I like to analyze; I’m a fairly analytic person. I like to write, I like to read. If you think about it, those are all essential attributes of being a good lawyer, and they’re arguably pretty important attributes for what I do now.

Q. Do you ever miss being a lawyer, since it was something you were so good at?
A. It’s interesting, I do miss the practice of law every once in awhile. I think what I miss more than the practice of law is my partners in the law firm. I miss the collegiality and the friendship. I had those five-and-a-half years in City Hall, but I really grew up with a lot of the people at Ballard Spahr. I had said at the time I came to Comcast that if I were to list my Top 20 friends in the world, probably 15 of them would have been at Ballard. So I miss that more; I miss my partners, I miss the atmosphere of the law firm, but it’s hard to say I miss billing hours or collecting bills from clients. And I get to do so much of what I used to love doing as a lawyer in this job that I couldn’t be happier where I am now.

Q. You met your wife while writing for the Swarthmore student newspaper, The Phoenix. Did you have an interest in media at an early age?
A. I had great interest in media as a consumer. But journalism gave me an opportunity to write, to be able to learn things about a subject, synthesize it and make it easily understandable for people who may be less familiar with the subject matter. In some ways, you acquire a comparable skill set to be a journalist as you do to be a lawyer. My friends in journalism might not be happy about that, but…

Q. And I understand that you also managed the campaigns of two of your friends who ran for student government at Swarthmore?
A. That was my first involvement in politics. It’s funny, I was with one of those friends [recently] in Washington and we were talking about this race. I managed the campaign of a friend for student body president and I am still friendly with her today. She’s a member of the Swarthmore Board of Managers, as is my wife, so we actually see her and her husband frequently these days.

Q. Did you learn anything from those campaigns that you later used in Ed Rendell’s mayoral campaigns?
A. [Laughs]. Those were a lot easier than mayoral politics. Actually, when I worked in Congress, I managed a New York State Assembly campaign and I participated in managing a Congressional campaign, but there’s nothing like a mayoral race in a big city in terms of the depth of skills you have to bring to the table to effectively manage that kind of a race.

Q. Am I correct that while at Swarthmore, you interned over the summer for Congressman James H. Scheuer and you wrote a bill prohibiting shipments of plutonium aboard commercial aircraft?
A. Right, I did. You don’t often find a topic like this. It’s simple, easy to understand. It literally was passed while I was there that summer. So the topic came up, we researched it, wrote the legislation and we actually got the bill passed, all in a two-and-a-half month internship.

Q. They used to carry plutonium on commercial airplanes?
A. They used to carry plutonium in basically steel drums on commercial airplanes. And the containers weren’t crash-proof, so if the plane crashed and the container opened, you would have a radiation leak. The congressman represented a district that included John F. Kennedy International Airport so it was obviously of relevance to his constituents.

Q. Your work ethic is legendary. People have described you as ‘famously tireless;’ Bissinger wrote of you going to work at 3 a.m., working for nearly three days straight and sleeping for three hours over three nights during contract negotiations. How were you physically able to pull it off? Is it just drive?
A. I think everyone’s metabolism is a little bit different. Particularly at that time, I was in my 30s and didn’t need a lot of sleep. I was with Ed Rendell in Chicago [recently], we spent a day together out there doing some things, and we were both talking about the fact that—because you’re now talking about almost 20 years later—neither one of us runs at quite the same level as we did when he was mayor. But part of it is adrenaline and the press of business. I think if I didn’t have anything to do, I would have been sleeping a lot more than three hours a night during that period of time. But when you’re constantly on the run and there are constantly things to do, I think your body helps you, at least for some period of time, to compress the hours of sleep that you need. And I was always good about catching up when I needed to catch up. I certainly sleep more than three hours a night today. But I do think I need less sleep on average than most people do.

Q. You have a beautiful view from up here; it looks like you can see the entire city in all directions. When you look out the window, what do you see?
A. I see a few things. What I see when I walk around this building is what a great city we live in. The diversity of it. The walk-ability of the downtown. Quite frankly, you can see every major construction and renovation project as it goes on. We get a bird’s eye view of the Convention Center looking out of this window. You get a real sense of the vibrancy and the diversity of the city.

There’s another story that I tell though. We are 850 feet or so in the air and you look out heading in the Northeast direction, and it looks really nice. It looks orderly, the streets are straight, everything is clean, it looks terrific. That’s what one of the poorest areas in America looks like from 850 feet high. The point I make is too many of our policymakers, our opinion leaders, our thought leaders, our elected officials, only see places like North Philadelphia from 850 feet high or from movies. They don’t see it down at the street level. They don’t see the impact of poverty and drugs and the lack of equal education opportunity, because you can’t see any of that from up here. You can only see it when you’re actually down in the street or driving in a car.

I don’t think that people who think less about these issues than, frankly, I think about these issues are hard-hearted people who aren’t interested in making sure that everyone in America has an equal chance to succeed in life, that everyone has a fair opportunity to get a job in the Comcast Center some day. The solution to that, of course, is to get more people to see what’s happening in our cities at street level, and not just from the top of beautiful skyscrapers like the Comcast Center.

Q. Of the many different terms people have used to describe you, a common image is that of a problem-solver, someone with the ability to get things done. Bissinger wrote that you reacted to chaos not by succumbing to it, but figuring out how to conquer it by ‘taking the puzzle and shaping it into a set of manageable pieces.’ Is that an accurate description?
A. Well it’s hard to talk about yourself in that way. It was nice to read what Buzz said. I’m a much bigger believer in collaboration, in teams, than I am in my own ability. If you were to ask me what I thought some of my biggest strengths were, I do think my biggest strength is an ability to put together teams of really good people to help manage chaos or to solve problems, and to draw on the talents and strengths of multiple people on the team. On the best teams, of course, you have people whose strengths compliment other people’s weaknesses. So I think all that I will raise my hand and accept responsibility for is being a much better-than-average judge of talent, and doing a good job of bringing really talented people together to solve problems and to bring order to chaos.

Q. Are there any misconceptions that people may have about you?
A. I think the thing I hear most frequently is that a lot of people just know me from television or from a public persona, and I’m just a normal guy. I hope I’ve never allowed my head to be turned by any of the nice things that people have said and any successes that I’ve been able to have in life. It makes me feel good when people say, ‘Gee whiz, we can’t believe how nice you are and how you’re willing to talk to me.’ I like talking to anyone. I think that’s a common perception of people who are reasonably well-known, that there is a sense of aloofness or arrogance. I hate that word. I don’t know any people who know me, or have had a chance to work with me, who think I’m aloof or arrogant. But maybe it’s people who just know of me as opposed to knowing me. And I think that’s not an accurate window into my real personality.

Q. Comcast, with 127,000 employees, is sort of like a small city. Are there any similarities between helping to run a major corporation and a major city?
A. I think that these are both big, complicated enterprises. There are significant differences between private business and government, but they are big, complicated enterprises with lots of problems to solve. They’re both organizations that have a lot of talented people. Clearly in Brian Roberts, who is as good a CEO as any in the country, and Ed Rendell, who was as good a mayor as any mayor in the country, they both benefit from extraordinary leadership at the top, and from an extraordinary team of talented people who were put together to attack problems and to execute their vision of those institutions. Frankly, you could say the same thing about Penn. A big, complicated institution, lots of problems, an enormously effective leader. In each of those places, leaders have put together enormously talented and effective teams to execute a vision and advance the interests of the enterprise.

Q. The Penn Class of 2011 will graduate in 11 days. If you could give them one piece of career advice or life advice, what would you say to them?
A. My one piece of life advice is to follow your passion. Follow your passion in your career, follow your passion in your personal relationships and follow your passion in the way in which you live your life outside of your place of employment and your family. That doesn’t mean everyone’s going to do the same thing because everyone has different passions, but I think if you follow your passion, you maximize your chances for success and for enjoyment in life.

Originally published on May 5, 2011

Penn Law hosted its 162nd graduation ceremony on May 16 at the Academy of Music. Edward G. Rendell C'65, Hon'00, the 45th Governor of Pennsylvania, gave the commencement address.

Penn Law’s Class of 2011 included 273 graduates receiving the Doctor of Law (JD) degree, 95 students receiving the Master of Laws (LLM) degree, 1 student receiving the Master of Comparative Law (LLCM) degree, and 2 receiving the Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) degree for a total of 371 graduates.

Video

Producer: Penn Program on Documentaries and the Law (directed by Professor Regina Austin); Cinematographer: Irit Reinheimer; Editor: Neal Swisher

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