Marek P. Bute ’05 has a business law dream job as corporate counsel with Amazon Web Services, Inc., focusing on the retail giant’s markets in Latin America, Canada and the Caribbean. (“Yes, it’s as cool as it sounds,” he allows.) But when Bute returned to RWU Law recently to deliver the school’s Stonewall Lecture – honoring individuals who have fought for LGBTQ equality and justice – his primary…, Sevcik v. Sandoval, , which successfully overturned Nevada’s ban on gay marriage (less than a year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned such bans nationally in, Obergefell v. Hodges, ). In the Nevada case, after the ruling was upheld by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a conservative group called the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage filed motions to stay marriage licenses pending appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. A day later, those motions were withdrawn, and Small and Carrillo became the first same-sex couple to be granted a marriage license…, That, is freedom., That, is equality.
Type: Story
Whether in Flint or New Orleans, “environmental racism” refers to the placement of low-income or minority communities in proximity to environmentally hazardous or degraded environments, such as toxic waste, pollution and urban decay. The term first came to national prominence in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans – in particular, the city’s lower 9th Ward, a community of low-…
Type: Story
Katie Ahern ’07 leads RWU Law’s Business Start-up Clinic, which serves nonprofit and small business clients. Students in the clinic learn substantive business lawyering skills, work directly with clients, and interact with the Rhode Island nonprofit and small business community. Professor Ahern was previously an associate at Hinckley, Allen & Snyder, where her legal practice focused in all…
Type: Story
Maria Viveiros was born in Rhode Island. Her mother is a Guatemalan immigrant who came to the United States to try to build a better life for her daughters. Maria graduated with distinction from Shea High School in Pawtucket, and then she attended Brown University, from which she graduated in 2008 with a B.S. in Sociology. Maria was just getting started. She went to work as a benefits…
Type: Story
As an expert in National Security Law, Professor Peter Margulies focuses on the delicate balance between liberty, equality and security in issues involving law, terrorism, immigration policy and other areas of central relevance in today’s volatile political climate. He frequently appears in such prominent media outlets as the New York Times, Time, CBS, Fox and others. Recently, he has been cited…, Law’s Detour: Justice Displaced in the Bush Administration, (New York: NYU Press). When the Supreme Court heard, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, (on what it means to provide “prohibited material in support of terrorism”), Margulies appeared on a Georgetown Law School panel discussing the case, was featured in a podcast for SCOTUS-blog, and was interviewed by the, National Law Journal, about his, amicus, brief in the case. Margulies has written more than a dozen articles discussing the War on Terror and has worked with RWU Law Professor Jared Goldstein – as well as litigators from the law firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge – representing Afghan detainees at Guantánamo Bay. He led a national conference held at RWU titled, “Legal Dilemmas in a Dangerous World: Law, Terrorism and National…
Type: Story
As he enters his eighth and final year as Rhode Island’s attorney general, Peter F. Kilmartin ’98, B.A. ’88, can claim by several measures to be the school’s most prominent alumnus. But he claims there was never any master plan. Still, having served 24 years as a Pawtucket police officer, with an extended stint as officer in charge of prosecutions ... 20 years in the state legislature,…
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Read Porter is senior staff attorney with the Marine Affairs Institute at Roger Williams University School of Law and the Rhode Island Sea Grant Legal Program. Read directs the Sea Grant Law Fellow Program, an experiential education program in which RWU law students conduct legal research on behalf of outside organizations. Mr. Porter has worked in and published widely on topics in environmental…, Harvard Environmental Law Review, , and a B.A. in Geology,, summa cum laude, , from Amherst College.
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Born to a drug-addicted mother, abandoned at birth and passed through multiple foster homes before being adopted by a Newport, R.I., family, Noah Kilroy ’13 was selling crack cocaine by age 16. Jailed twice in Rhode Island, he was arrested in Florida for trafficking at age 20 and faced a 15-year sentence. When he called his adoptive mother for help, she hung up. He was all alone – and that was a…, Alone Time:, He spent 18 months in a Florida prison, which “did what it was supposed to do. I was forced to think about my actions and take a moral inventory of myself.” He read books on black history, psychology, and sociology; after his release, he achieved a 3.7 GPA at the Community College of Rhode Island and transferred to Salve Regina University., Right to Vote:, Working on a state initiative to give former felons the right to vote, Kilroy met Andres Idarraga, a former drug dealer headed to Yale Law School, who became a role model. The only law school that gave Kilroy a chance was the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. After placing in the top 20 percent his 1L year, he transferred to RWU Law., Wall of support:, Through Idarraga, Kilroy met A.T. Wall, Director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, who is now his mentor. Skeptical at first – “due to living that street life and knowing you can’t trust everyone” – Kilroy is deeply grateful for Wall’s support, which included asking Providence solicitor Jeffrey Padwa to hire Kilroy as an intern. Kilroy joined Padwa’s office full-time in 2013 and now…, Giving Back:, In 2012, Kilroy, Idarraga, and a third drug dealer-turned-law-school-graduate, Bruce Reilly, launched TTEF, which gives scholarships to former offenders. “You have to be willing to make sacrifices,” Kilroy says. While working at a Taco Bell during college, he served guys he knew from the street. “It was humiliating. But some of those same guys are now clients of mine. If you put in blood,sweat,…
Type: Story
For Philadelphia native Kirby Gordon, law school offered a perk she didn’t quite expected: a pass to the Bill Cosby rape and sexual assault trials. “It was exciting and overwhelming; there were so many people!” she recalls. “But it was great to watch real, practicing attorneys at work in such a high-profile trial – seeing it all in real time; law the way it’s supposed to be practiced. We would…
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