Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, commonly known as Touro Law Center, is an ABA accredited law school. It is located on Long Island, New York, in the hamlet of Central Islip. The Law Center is part of Touro College, a private, not-for-profit, coeducational institution based in New York City.
The current Dean of Touro Law Center is Harry Ballan, former partner of Davis Polk & Wardell, LLP. Touro Law Center has approximately 50 faculty members and 20 teaching adjunct faculty.
Campus
Touro Law Center is the only law school in Suffolk County, New York. After briefly beginning operations in Manhattan, the Law Center's first campus was established in the town of Huntington, which is located in northwestern Suffolk County. In 2007, the Law Center moved to its current campus in Central Islip. The Central Islip campus, consisting of a four-story, 180,000-square-foot building, is located within walking distance of both The Alfonse M. D’Amato United States Courthouse and the John P. Cohalan State Court Complex, in which the Suffolk County District and Family Courts and the New York State Supreme Court sit.
Programs
Curriculum Programs
Students may enroll in either a program to earn a Juris Doctor (JD) degree or to earn a Master of Laws (LLM) degree. Both full-time and part-time programs are available to students in the JD program.
Touro Law Center is one of several law schools in New York State to offer a two-year accelerated JD program, in which accepted students fulfill their credit-requirements of study within 24 months, beginning with the summer of their first year, and sit for a Bar Examination 26 months after they begin their law school studies. In addition, Touro Law Center offers an accelerated JD program, referred to as a "three-plus-three" (BA/JD) program, with the University of Central Florida, and an accelerated JD Program which allows graduates of foreign law schools to earn a J.D. degree in two years.
Touro Law Center offers 4 concentrations for J.D. candidates, an L.L.M program for U.S. law school graduates and a Master of Laws in U.S. Legal Studies for foreign law graduates, and joint J.D./M.B.A, J.D./M.P.A., and J.D./M.S.W. programs with Touro College, State University of New York at Stony Brook, and LIU-Post.
Touro Law Center maintains summer programs in Vietnam, Germany, and Croatia; the Croatia program is operated jointly with the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and the University of Zagreb Faculty of Law. In 2011, when the Vietnam program was first offered, Touro Law Center was the first and only law school to offer such a program within the borders of Vietnam. The law school previously held summer abroad programs in India and China and in Israel.
Experiential Learning Programs
In September 2013, Touro Law Center became an invited member of the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Consortium, which consists of 31 ABA-accredited law schools that have demonstrated a commitment to innovation in legal education and offer a number of law school courses "that implement a student-centered approach to legal education". In 2013, PreLaw Magazine recognized Touro Law Center as one of six law school schools in the nation offering innovative clinical and experiential learning opportunities, highlighting the law school's ProBono Uncontested Divorce Project, which is a required part of the first year of study. Touro Law Center is also a member of the Alliance for Experiential Learning in Law, an alliance that currently has 113 law school and legal service organization members, which was established in 2011 with the goal of integrating experience-based education into the traditional law school curriculum.
In Fall 2006, the Law Center began a pilot program that required all first year students to observe courtroom practice in both the federal Alfonse M. D’Amato United States Courthouse and the John P. Cohalan State Court Complex. In 2009, the Center for Court Innovation issued a report on its three-year study of the pilot program; the report concluded that consideration should be given to expanding the program either through increased observation opportunities or participation of students beyond their first year of law school. As of 2011, the program is a graduation requirement in which all first year students must participate, and upper â€" level students have the option of continuing the curriculum through coursework and court externships, clerkships, or pro bono projects.
Clinics and Centers
Touro Law Center's clinical program consists of legal clinics that specialize in the areas of:
- Bankruptcy & Mortgage Foreclosure
- Criminal Law (State Defense/Prosecution & Federal Prosecution)
- Disaster Relief
- Elder Law
- Family Law
- Immigration Law
- Small Business and Not-for-Profit Law
- Veterans' and Servicemembers' Rights
Touro Law Center also hosts the following Institutes and Centers:
- Aging and Longevity Law Institute
- Center for Innovation in Business, Law & Technology
- Institute of Land Use and Sustainable Development Law
- Jewish Law Institute
- TLC Heart (TLC â€" Hurricane Emergency Assistance and Referral Team)
- International Justice Center for Post-Graduate Development
The International Justice Center for Postâ€"Graduate Development serves as a national clearinghouse for the law-school based incubator movement. Led by Fred Rooney, the Center launched Touro’s Community Justice Center in 2013, housing eight-ten start-up law firms owned by Touro alumni.
The William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Public Advocacy Center (PAC), established in 2007, has 14 offices and houses on-campus non-profit legal service providers such as the Nassau/Suffolk Law Services Committee, Inc. (grant recipient of the Legal Services Corporation), New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Empire Justice Center (member of the Consumer Federation of America); there are also additional off-campus member affiliates. Thomas Maligno has served as the Executive Director of the Public Advocacy Center since it opened.
History
Touro Law Center was established and admitted its first class in the Fall of 1980. It began operations in a building located at 30 West 44th Street in Manhattan, New York City, which is now the home of the Penn Club of New York. In 1982, the law school moved to the town of Huntington in Suffolk County, New York and the building it occupied for twenty years, formerly Toaz Junior High School. Upon its move to the Huntington campus on Long Island, quite a few politicians, government officials, and government employees applied for acceptance and attended in pursuit of their J.D. Degree, due to the fact that, at the time, Touro Law Center was the only law school on Long Island to offer a part-time program to students.
John S. Bainbridge was the Dean of the law school from 1982 to 1985. During his tenure, Dean Bainbridge recruited the founding faculty and administrators and guided the school through the first American Bar Association inspection that led to its provisional national accreditation. The first class graduated in Spring 1983, and in that same year, the Law Center was provisionally accredited by the American Bar Association.
In April 1986, the Law Center was officially named the Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, in honor of Judge Jacob D. Fuchsberg, who served as an associate judge of the New York State Court of Appeals from 1975 to 1983. Judge Fuchsberg began serving on the Board of Trustees of Touro College at the time it was established in the 1970s, and during his tenure on the Board, he advocated for the establishment, accreditation, and growth of the Law Center.
Howard A. Glickstein served as the Dean of the Law Center from 1986 to 2004. During Dean Glickstein's tenure, the Law Center achieved full accreditation by the American Bar Association, which was granted in 1989. It was also during his tenure that the Law Center was accepted as a member of the American Association of Law Schools, which occurred in 1994. During his eighteen-year tenure, Dean Glickstein also oversaw the initial plans for the Central Islip, New York campus and the development of the construction project. Construction on the new campus began in March 2005, shortly after Dean Glickstein's tenure ended.
From 2004 to 2012, Lawrence Raful served as Dean. During Dean Raful's tenure, the construction of the Central Islip campus took place. In 2007, Touro Law Center welcomed its first class to the Central Islip campus.
In 2012, Patricia Salkin was appointed the Dean of the law school.
Legal scholarship & publications
In May 2014, Touro Law Center was identified by one law school rankings system as the 13th "most undervalued" law school in the country, based on the spread between the Law Center's U.S. News peer reputation and the number of downloads from the Social Sciences Research Network of Touro law faculty scholarship. This particular system, first established in a law review article in 2006 by two law professors, compares the U.S. News Rankings to scholarly impact as measured by download counts from the Social Sciences Research Network. In 2013, Touro Law Center launched its SSRN Legal Studies Research Paper Series eJournal.
The students and faculty of Touro Law Center currently publish four journals:
- Touro Law Review (first published Spring 1985)
- Touro International Law Review (formerly known as the Touro Journal of Transnational Law; first published Fall 1988)
- Touro Law Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity (first published August 2006)
- Touro Journal of Experiential Learning (first published Fall 2014)
Employment
According to Touro's 2013 ABA-required disclosures, 53% of the Class of 2013 had obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment by nine months after graduation. Touro Law Center's Law School Transparency under-employment score is 28.7%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2013 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.
Costs
The cost in tuition and fees for attending Touro Law Center full-time for the 2014-2015 academic year is $22,150 per semester and $16,500 per semester for part-time programs. The 2013 Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $272,672.
Notable faculty
Full-time faculty:
- Deseriee A. Kennedy â€" Kermit Gitenstein Distinguished Professor of Health Law and Policy; scholar on the subject of Family Law & Domestic Violence
- Richard Daniel Klein â€" Bruce K. Gould Distinguished Professor of Law and criminal law scholar
- Leon D. Lazer â€" Formerly a Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department.
- Deborah W. Post â€" Former Dean for Academic Affairs and Faculty Development; scholar on the subject of Contract Law
Adjunct faculty:
- Joseph Frank Bianco â€" Appointed by President George W. Bush as a US District Judge in the Eastern District of New York; teaches National Security and the Law.
- Frederick K. Brewington â€" Civil Rights
- Sol Wachtler â€" Former Chief Judge of New York Court of Appeals; Distinguished Adjunct Professor.
- Leonard Wexler â€" Senior US District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York. Distinguished Jurist in Residence.
Notable alumni
- Kathleen M. Rice (1991) â€" U.S. House of Representatives, New York's 4th Congressional District, November 2014
- Sal Iacono (1996) â€" Comedian, writer and game show host; best known for his roles on The Man Show and the late night television show Jimmy Kimmel Live!
- Gata Kamsky (2004) â€" Chess grandmaster, and a former World Rapid Chess Champion
- Bikram Singh (musician) â€" Housing attorney; said to be the most famous Bhangra fusion star in North America according to the New York Times
- Martin Tankleff (2014) â€" Activist
- Bradley Blakeman (1986) â€" Fox News Contributor; Former Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush; Georgetown University politics professor
- Gabriel Silva Marques (2014) â€" Former Deputy Nassau County Comptroller, member of the Portuguese Government's Diaspora Advisory Council (Conselho das Comunidades Portuguesas).
Five current members of the New York State Legislature are Touro Law alums:
- Joseph Addabbo, Jr. (1992) â€" New York State Senator, 15th Senate District
- John J. Flanagan (1990) â€" New York State Senator, 2nd Senate District
- Al Graf (2002) â€" New York State Assemblyman, 5th Assembly District
- Kenneth LaValle (1987) â€" New York State Senator, 1st Senate District
- Ed Hennessey (1988) â€" New York State Assemblyman, 3rd Assembly District
The following Touro Law alumni are current or recently elected judges in New York State:
- Merik R. Aaron (1992) â€" Nassau County Family Court Judge and Acting Nassau County Supreme Court Justice
- Jeffrey Arlen Spinner (1987) â€" Acting State Supreme Court Justice and Acting Family Court Judge, Suffolk County
- Jennifer A. Henry (1993) â€" Acting County Court Judge, Suffolk County
- Anna R. Anzalone (1986) â€" District Court Judge in Nassau County since 2004; elected to State Supreme Court
- Terence P. Murphy (1993) â€" District Court, Nassau County
- Thomas Rademaker (1996) â€" Family Court Judge, Nassau County
- Rachel Hahn (1987) â€" Family Court Judge, Westchester County
See also
- Law of New York
References
External links
- Official website