Georgetown Law Alumni Magazine - Res Ipsa Loquitur
Fall/Winter 2009 - Online Volume 2
Alumni
Development News
Georgetown Law alumni continue to demonstrate their generosity and commitment to the school. April McClain-Delaney (L’89) and John Delaney (L’88) have recently made a seven-figure gift to establish the Delaney Family Professorship in Public Interest Law and to enhance Georgetown’s Loan Repayment Assistance Program, or LRAP, for alumni working in the public interest or government sectors (see story p. 40). The professorship will be held by Professor Philip Schrag.
The gift is one more way in which the Delaneys — who in the past funded an endowed scholarship, contributed to the Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights and who continue to serve the university (John on the Board of Directors and April on the Law Board of Visitors) — show their appreciation for the school that has given them so much: careers, connections and even each other (they met at the Law Center in 1987).
“For a lot of reasons, Georgetown helped us get started with a life that I feel very lucky to have lived so far,” John said in a 2004 Georgetown Law interview. “So we’re very fond of the university and the law school, and giving back is a way of staying involved and linked.”
Georgetown Law students are putting donors’ gifts to good use — and one of the ways they do so is through their summer public interest jobs. Many of the summer internships that students undertake with nonprofits in Washington, D.C., and around the world are unpaid, and the Equal Justice Foundation (EJF) summer fellowship is one way students make up the difference.
Recent alum Jarod Taylor (L’09) says his first-year EJF grant helped him do an internship with the Human Rights Law Foundation, an organization he continued to work with through his three years of law school. He’ll be doing business litigation in the Tokyo office of a firm that he says is “committed to public interest and human rights” and sees himself doing human rights litigation at some point in the future.
How important was that EJF grant? “It paid for my food,” he says, adding that he was able to make it through the summer because of EJF.
Alumni can donate to EJF through the Georgetown Law Annual Fund at www.law.georgetown.edu/giving/; all donations are tax deductible. Please make sure to designate your donation to EJF. Questions can be addressed by e-mailing: annualfund@law.georgetown.edu.
“To all the donors who have made my coming to Georgetown possible, thank you,” student speaker Neal A. Fisher (C’06, L’09) told those assembled at the Sport and Fitness Center on March 28 for Georgetown Law’s Annual Scholarship Luncheon. “Thank you for not only giving me the chance to receive a quality education but for welcoming me into your home.”
It was deep and sincere praise from a double Hoya who knows all too well the impact that Georgetown can have on a student’s life — both as an educational institution and as a place to belong. Fisher, whose law school journey was the subject of three feature stories in Georgetown Law (Spring/Summer 2007, 2008 and 2009), grew up poor on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and is the first in his family to enter a profession. At the scholarship luncheon, he spoke frankly about his life before coming to Georgetown, a life of poverty, hardship and even hunger that would be impossible for many to imagine, let alone to endure.
“I will remain forever grateful to you for your kindness, and I hope that I will be in a position to do for someone what you have done for me,” Fisher said.
The luncheon also gave donors an opportunity to share their stories. Alumni speaker Leslie T. Thornton (L’83) said that she gives back to Georgetown Law because she never had to worry about paying for school the way some of her classmates did.
“It was important to me to try to give that back,” said Thornton, who has established an endowed scholarship in honor of her parents. “It’s the proudest thing I have ever done.”
Other donation news includes: Workplace Flexibility 2010 has received a $2,589,612 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support work to create a better alignment between the “workplace” and the “workforce.” The initiative, located at the Law Center, aims to develop consensus- based policy solutions to expand Americans’ access to flexible work arrangements such as compressed workweeks, predictable schedules and telecommuting.
The O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law received a grant of $291,029 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support a conference bringing together a group of experts in the field of HIV/AIDS research, key policymakers and representatives from NGOs and private industry from around the world. The June 2009 conference, called “Planning for PrEP,” provided critical thought on the ongoing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) trials.
The O’Neill Institute also received $99,999 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for continuing support of its Top Ten Legal Solutions in Health Reform project. The project seeks to identify and examine the legal issues arising from health care reform and to provide policymakers, attorneys and other stakeholders with concise analyses and a range of solutions.
The Harrison Institute for Housing and Community Development has received a grant of $50,000 from the Community Development Support Collaborative for work providing post-purchase assistance and support to tenant associations. The institute assists low- and moderate-income tenant groups in buying and managing their buildings and helps to create good quality, affordable housing.
The Georgetown State-Federal Climate Resource Center received a $500,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to develop a Web-based clearinghouse of adaptation resources, to coordinate adaptation and mitigation efforts and to convene high-level meetings of state and local officials on adaptation. The Center will also explore the role of the states in adaptation and the impacts of climate change on existing legislation. It also received a $200,000 grant from the Joyce Foundation to advance the fundamental goal of mitigation as the impacts of climate change are felt.
