Combatting Civil Injustice • News & Events • Penn Carey Law

Spring 2022- Penn Law Journal

The Spring 2022 issue of the Penn Law Journal shines a light on alumni working to disrupt systems of injustice that plague the legal world.

The Spring 2022 issue of the Penn Law Journal is now available online.

“Civil Injustice,” the feature story in the issue, highlights University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School alumni dedicated to advocating civil justice.

Jim Sandman L'76 Jim Sandman L'76“The ABA adopted the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in 1983, setting standards for ethical behavior and recommending a church-and-state-like separation between lawyers and nonlawyers,” writes Larry Teitelbaum, Editor of the Penn Law Journal. “The Rules came well before the technology boom and the worsening of the civil justice gap. Is it time to reconsider them? The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School has a voice in the debate.”

Jim Sandman L’76, Distinguished Lecturer and Senior Consultant to the Future of the Profession Initiative (FPI) “is deeply disturbed by how far the country has strayed from the promise of justice for all,” reports Teitelbaum.

“When you persistently have such a significant disparity between need, demand, and supply, something’s wrong,” said Sandman. “And when that happens in a regulated market, you need to ask whether regulation is causing the dysfunction or at least contributing to it.”

Some other highlights of the issue include the following:

In the Dean’s Message, Dean and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law Ted Ruger expresses hope that expanded opportunities at the Law School will help more graduates like Bridget Lavender L’21, SPP’21 gain the skills they need to disrupt entrenched systems that leave low-income communities vulnerable and without access to a lawyer in civil courts across the country.
Katie Thomson L'90Katie Thomson L’90, Director of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Implementation at the U.S. Department of Transportation, talks about how she used her expertise to focus on the safety and efficiency in Amazon’s routes of transportation.
In his new book The Secret to Success in Law and Life, Dan Solin L’65 talks about how emotions, rather than facts, drive the most important decisions we make throughout our lives – and the most vital emotion among them is likability. “Along with contracts, torts, and constitutional law,” Solin writes, “I wish my course selection at Penn included ‘How to Be More Likable.’”
Coretta Owusu L’14 combines her passion for innovation and design with her knowledge of meaningful social advocacy to found Design Dua, a unique entrepreneurship venture through which she creates opportunities for traditional basket weavers in rural West African communities to sell their goods and share their art with other parts of the world.
A pro bono attorney for Legal Momentum, Karen Chesley L’09 worked to help achieve crucial legislation to shut down popular human sex trafficking avenues on the Internet.

Previous editions of the Penn Law Journal can be viewed in our archives.