Cleveland-Marshall College of Law is pleased to announce that it has entered into a 3+3 partnership with Oakwood University, an HBCU in Huntsville, Alabama (our second 3+3 agreement with an HBCU). These agreements permit students to complete both their undergraduate and law degrees in six years rather than seven, with their first year of law school satisfying the student’s final year of undergraduate credits, as well, saving students both time and money. Providing this opportunity is consistent with the value proposition inherent in everything we do.   

This latest 3+3 agreement is our 14^th partnership. Since 2014, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law has created an internal 3+3 program at Cleveland State University and has entered into external 3+3 agreements with Lake Erie College, the University of Findlay, Ursuline College, Notre Dame College, Mercyhurst University (Pennsylvania), Trine University (Indiana), Marietta College, Hiram College, Wagner College (New York), Rust College (Mississippi), Baldwin Wallace University, and Kent State University. 

Oakwood University has been recognized as one of the top 20 historically black Christian colleges in the nation and is 16^th in the nation of all colleges and universities for the number of black medical school applicants. Its 45- to 60-member choir, the Aeolians, has traveled the world and performed in the White House and at the Kennedy Center. Oakwood is known for its musical program and has among its alumni Little Richard, Angela Brown (soprano opera singer), multiple members of the gospel group Take 6, and others. Its alumni also includes Delbert Baker, a former President of Oakwood who currently serves on the White House Board for HBCUs; John F. Street, the two-term mayor of Philadelphia; Barry Black, the current chaplain to the United States Senate; Erica Thomas, a Georgia State Representative; T.R.M. Howard, civil rights leader, surgeon, and mentor to Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer; Sylvia Rhue, a writer, filmmaker, producer, and LGBT activist; and many others.  

Because of our history as a school of opportunity, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law has been reaching out to a number of HBCUs to join with us in 3+3 agreements. Oakwood University is the second HBCU to partner with us, after Rust College in Mississippi (signed October 2020).  

C|M|LAW’s Commitment to Providing Opportunity to a Diverse Population 

Preparing a diverse student body for the practice of law has been a hallmark of Cleveland-Marshall for more than 120 years. Since their early history, Cleveland-Marshall’s predecessor programs were dedicated to providing access to women and minority students at a time when they had been systematically denied a meaningful opportunity to attend law (and other professional) schools. We were the first law school in Ohio to admit women, and we were one of the first to admit African American students. The early 20^th-century class photos lining the walls of the second-floor atrium provides clear evidence of that early commitment, which was intended to benefit not only the minority and women candidates that we admitted but also the legal profession itself, which badly needed (and still needs) more minority and women lawyers for the good of the profession and civil society.  

For example, just a small sample of C|M minority graduates who benefited from our commitment to providing opportunity and who have made meaningful contributions to American life and the legal profession include many members of our Hall of Fame:  

• Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (class of 1983), 11^th Congressional District of Ohio 
• Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson (class of 1983) 
• Justice Melody J. Stewart (class of 1988), Ohio Supreme Court 
• Judge Ronald B. Adrine (class of 1973), senior staff counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations, long-time Judge on Cleveland Municipal Court, spearheaded Cleveland Bar Association’s Minority Clerkship Program 
• Teresa Metcalf Beasley (class of 1993), partner at Calfee, Halter & Griswold, former Law Director of the City of Cleveland and member of Mayor Frank Jackson’s Special Commission on Missing Persons and Sex Crime Investigations 
• Chief Magistrate Gregory F. Clifford (class of 1980), founder of the Minority Outreach Committee to help C|M minority law students acclimate to law school and the legal profession 
• Sheryl King Bedford (class of 1979), Cleveland Regional Transit Authority Chief Legal Officer 
• Judge Patricia A. Blackmon (class of 1979), Ohio 8^th District Court of Appeals, formerly Chief Prosecutor for the City of Cleveland and Assistant Director of the Victim/Witness Assistance Program 
• Hon. George Forbes (class of 1962), Cleveland City Council’s first African-American President 
• James L. Hardiman (class of 1968), legal director of the ACLU of Ohio 
• Larry H. James (class of 1977), Managing Partner of Crabbe, Brown & James 
• Judge Benita Pearson (class of 1995), U.S. Dist. Court Northern District of Ohio 
• Leonard D. Young (class of 1974), first African American to serve as General Counsel for a Fortune 500 corporation 
• the late Nona M. Burney (class of 1981), a life-long teacher who started Cleveland’s Martin Luther King Law and Public Service Magnet High School and who became a Professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago, working to prevent closure of Chicago neighborhood schools 
• the late Annette Garner Butler (class of 1970), Equal Opportunity Specialist for the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare’s Office of Civil Rights, 24 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Judge on Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, and first elected woman President and Board Chair of the City Club of Cleveland 
• the late Russell T. Adrine (class of 1954), President of Cleveland chapters of Urban League and NAACP 
• the late Lillian W. Burke (class of 1951), granddaughter of a slave and the first African American woman to serve in the Ohio judiciary 
• the late Judge Charles W. Fleming (class of 1955), elected to Cleveland Municipal Court, serving for 19 years 
• the late Clarence L. James, Jr. (class of 1962), serving as Cleveland Law Director and later serving as Jimmy Carter’s Deputy Campaign manager 
• the late C. Lyonel Jones (class of 1963), Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland 
• the late Reuben M. Payne (class of 1953), who served as lead prosecutor in the landmark Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio 
• the late Carl B. Stokes (class of 1956), the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city (Cleveland) 
• the late long-serving Congressman Louis Stokes (class of 1953), 11^th Congressional District of Ohio 
• the late Stanley E. Tolliver, Sr. (class of 1953), representing civil rights protestors in Mississippi, Glenville riots defendants, and college students involved in the fatal Kent State shootings in 1970 
• the late Judge George W. White (class of 1955), Chief Judge of U.S. Dist. Court Northern Ohio, credited with ending Cleveland’s 25-year desegregation case and creating the United Black Fund of Cleveland 
• the late Judge Jean Murrell Capers (class of 1945), first African American woman elected to Cleveland City Council, appointed an Assistant State Attorney General, and appointed to Cleveland Municipal Court 
• the late Charles V. Carr (class of 1926), grandson of a slave and 30-year veteran of Cleveland City Council  
• the late State Representative William H. Clifford (class of 1902), believed to be the first African American male alumnus of one of our predecessor schools 
• the late Jane Edna Hunter (class of 1925), for whom the principal building of the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services is named in honor of her work with children and families 
• the late Norman S. Minor (class of 1927), the first African American Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor, in whose honor the Cleveland affiliate of the National Bar Association is named 
• the late Lawrence O. Payne (class of 1923), named the city’s first African American Assistant Police Prosecutor, elected to Cleveland City Council, and a partner in the creation of The Call and Post, Cleveland’s former African American newspaper 
• the late Louise Johnson Pridgeon (class of 1922), one of Cleveland’s first African American women lawyers and President of the Harlan Law Club (predecessor to the Norman Minor Bar Association) 
• the late Hazel Mountain Walker (class of 1919), Cleveland’s first African American school principal and one of the first black women admitted to the bar, which she did “to prove that black women could earn law degrees.” 

Seeking out 3+3 partnerships with HBCUs will permit us to continue this tradition. 

Professor Milena Sterio traveled to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in order to continue her work on a large human rights documentation project involving the Rohingya refugee community.  Professor Sterio has been working on behalf of the Public International Law and Policy Group on documenting human rights abuses which were committed against the Rohingya ethnic group in Myanmar, by Myanmar authorities.

More than one million Rohingya refugees now live in large refugee camps near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.  Professor Sterio visited the refugee camp and engaged in a workshop with a group of Rohingya refugees at the camp; the workshop was on best documentation practices and lessons learned from prior documentation efforts. This documentation work is funded by the U.S. Department of State.  

Professor Jonathan Witmer-Rich was quoted in a story by Ideastream’s Matthew Richman, titled “City official says Cleveland police have facial recognition tech. How it’s being used is unclear.” Professor Witmer-Rich stated, “My first question is, ‘Do they have a written policy governing their use of facial recognition? And if so, can the citizens see it?’” He noted that the privacy risks of facial recognition need to be considered: “Fundamentally, even if your system works extremely well, we may just decide we don’t want you to use it because it’s too powerful of a tool, it invades into our privacy too much.”

Professor Milena Sterio organized and moderated a panel on April 18 on the topic of “The Ukraine Conflict: Expert Roundtable on Transitional Justice and International Criminal Law Issues.”  Professor Sterio organized this panel in her capacity as Co-Chair of the Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Interest Group at the American Society of International Law. The panel was also co-sponsored by the International Criminal Law Interest Group at ASIL and by the International Law and International Human Rights Law sections at the AALS.  Panelists included Professor Vladyslav Lanovoy, Universite Laval (Canda), Pavlo Pushkar, European Court of Human Rights, Professor Margaret deGuzman, Temple Law School, Professor Rebecca Hamilton, American University Washington College of Law, and Professor Leila Sadat, Washington University School of Law.

Professor Sterio also participated as a panelist in a Roundtable Discussion about Russian War Crimes in Ukraine on April 27.  This event was organized by the Case Western Reserve University School of Law and moderated by Dean Michael Scharf. Other panelists included David Crane, former chief prosecutor, Special Court for Sierra Leone, and Profssor Valerie Oosterveld, Western Ontario Law School (Canada).  

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, spoke to the Bar Association of San Francisco about current developments in antitrust on Capitol Hill and in the courtroom, especially as they relate to ongoing debate over high technology and online platforms. With him on the panel were Professor Josh Davis of the U.C. Hastings School of Law and Caitlin Coslett of Berger & Montague, PC.

The National Governor’s Association (NGA) recently invited Ray to provide an expert briefing on new developments in state privacy laws, and the Center for Internet Security interviewed Ray for its “Cybersecurity Where You Are” podcast about the intersection of cybersecurity and public policy and the growing number of states adopting incentive-based cybersecurity laws modeled on the Ohio Data Protection Act, which he helped draft as a member of the CyberOhio Board.

Ray co-chairs the Sedona Conference’s Biometric Privacy Primer drafting group of seven biometric law and technology experts. He will lead a discussion of the latest draft of the Primer at the Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Working Group’s annual meeting in late April. 

Professor Brian Ray co-authored the article South Africa’s technologies enhancing contact tracing for Covid-19: A human rights and techno-politics assessment published in the peer-reviewed South Africa Journal of Human Rights, the leading human rights journal in South Africa.

Professor Matthew Ahn’s article on attorney fee awards has been accepted for publication by the Dickinson Law Review. The article, titled Navigating Beyond the Lodestar: Borrowing the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to Provide Predictability, proposes overhauling the way in which courts (both federal and state) calculate attorneys’ fees.

The article is available for download here, and the abstract is as follows:

“The lodestar has been the dominant calculation method for fee-shifting awards for nearly forty years. But the lodestar has persistent issues: it leads to extra litigation and judicial effort, the fee awards are highly variable, and it creates an incentive for plaintiffs’ attorneys to bill extravagantly and reject settlement, among others. This Article argues that the issues with the lodestar result from a mismatch between the lodestar and the purpose of the underlying fee-shifting statutes, which encourage attorneys to bring suits that would not normally be economically viable. Encouraging attorneys to do so requires the fee awards to be predictable, and this Article concludes that predictability is impossible within the lodestar, which allows an attorney to set the base calculation and asks a judge to use percentage cuts to arrive at a just result. This Article therefore proposes adopting a framework for fee awards that resembles the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, using an automatic calculation to set a fee range that the judge can work within or, in an unusual case, deviate upward or downward from. This will address each of the lodestar’s persistent concerns while providing the predictability that will encourage the cases these fee-shifting statutes intend to encourage.”

Professor Milena Sterio presented the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., on April 7th, on the topic of “Feminist Judgments at the ICC.”  Professor Sterio’s remarks focused on a book chapter that she is writing, as part of the “ICC Feminist Judgments” book project (book to be published by Cambridge University Press in late 2022).  Professor Sterio’s chapter will re-write the International Criminal Court’s Sentencing Judgment of Dominic Ongwen, former Lord’s Resistance Army leader, from a feminist perspective.  Dominic Ongwen had been sentenced by the ICC to 25 years of imprisonment in May 2021.  

Professor Milena Sterio presented at a conference at Washington University in Saint Louis on April 4, on the topic of “Living Together in Tomorrow’s World: French Secularism Beyond Borders.” Professor Sterio’s remarks focused on the European Court of Human Rights cases involving religious rights, and the ability of various European states to limit such rights for national security, public order, or other grounds.  The conference was co-sponsored by the Cultural Services of the Embassy of France in the US, and it assembled a group of French and U.S.-based academics; some conference panels were held in French and some in English.