On Sunday, the 2024 entertainment awards season will culminate with the live broadcast of the 2024 Academy Awards. Each year, millions of television viewers tune in to the Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, Tonys, and Golden Globes for a taste of Hollywood’s glitz and glamor. That global fascination is the subject of a new Rutgers study, which examines the cottage industry of entertainment awards and explains how the law plays a pivotal role in nearly every aspect of show business’s most glamorous microeconomy.

The New Jersey State Bar Foundation awarded more than $4 million in multi-year grants to fund new and existing law school clinics at Rutgers Law School in both Camden and Newark.

Two Rutgers Law students were selected as New Jersey State Bar Foundation (NJSBF) post-graduate law fellows who will work with nonprofit organizations on public interest legal matters. Elias Bull '24 (Newark) will join Make the Road New Jersey to work on community education and group litigation to protect and support immigrant and low-income tenants. Joelle Paull '24 (Camden) will join the Fair Share Housing Center to help address the housing shortage for New Jersey's lowest income residents by preserving existing affordable homes, working to extend affordability controls, and conducting outreach on New Jersey's affirmative marketing standards and enformcement mechanisms. 

In the thick of the Information Age, the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy and Law (RIIPL) is a much-needed hub for interdisciplinary research and policy work, illuminating legal issues impacting software, media, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and more. But for two alumni, RIIPL was a jumping off point for prestigious careers in pharmaceuticals.

Erinmarie Byrnes ‘23 always had a passion for social justice, and knew she wanted to dedicate her legal career to serving communities in need. Unfortunately, this path is incredibly difficult for new attorneys because the nonprofit sector often lacks the time and resources needed to pay, train, and mentor them. But Byrnes is meeting this challenge head-on thanks to the Maida Postgraduate Public Interest Fellowship, a two-year program specifically designed to support and sustain public interest legal work by graduates of Rutgers Law School.

For new attorneys, a judicial clerkship is an experience like no other. It’s an opportunity to intimately understand the judicial system, collaborate closely with a judge, and fine tune various legal skills in a unique environment. That said, even applying for one of these positions can be overwhelming, and not just because it’s highly competitive—most applicants find themselves juggling a law school career or a full-time position while also compiling and tracking several applications at various stages. The good news is that Rutgers Law School’s Center for Career Development can help carry some of the load.

Please join us in celebrating the distinguished careers of Rutgers Law School faculty who are retiring soon or have retired this past academic year. Each professor has left an indelible mark on the law school community and the legal field around the world.

Whether they met on campus or attended as a married couple, these pairs journeyed through Rutgers Law School together and emerged stronger.

Years of work by Professor Ruth Anne Robbins, her students, and their partners at the NJ Coalition to End Domestic Violence (NJCEDV) culminated on January 8 in the signing of bill A-1475, which requires the court to consider information regarding coercive control in domestic violence proceedings.

The Rutgers Law National Trial Team’s current season has become a season of championships. The National team won their third Championship title in a year this past weekend at the Texas Young Lawyers Association (TYLA) National Trial Competition Regional in Philadelphia. Rutgers Law third-year students and team competitors Livie Ruhl, Elizabeth Weinman, and Melanie Zelikovsky earned the Championship title at the Criminal Courthouse in Center City and will compete in the TYLA National Competition in April. Livie also won the award for Best Advocate in the Competition. 

Rutgers Law School’s “The Power of Attorney” podcast is the silver winner in the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Podcast & Media category in the third annual Anthem Awards. This year’s winners were selected from a pool of over 2,000 submissions from 44 countries by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Every year in February, the nation recognizes the history and contributions of the Black community in the United States. There is no shortage of trailblazers at Rutgers Law School who paved the way for generations and altered the course of American history. Here are just a few Rutgers Law alumni who broke ground in their respective legal fields and beyond.