News

Emily Curran, 2L, is a legal intern at the Capital Habeas Unit (CHU), Federal Public Defender, for the Western District of Missouri. Based in Kansas City, the CHU is responsible for providing federal capital habeas representation in cases throughout the state. Missouri’s last execution was in May, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal court’s stay.

Amarachi Ihejirika ’16 is a product liability defense lawyer with Blackwell Burke in Minneapolis, where she represents corporate clients of all sizes. She was recently named one of the National Black Lawyers Top 40 under 40, recognizing highly talented young Black attorneys.

Yemaya Hanna, 2L, has had the opportunity to have professional experiences in three very different types of professional environments this summer.

Emily Newman, 2L, is spending her summer as an intern with the Office of the General Counsel for the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA is scientific agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce that focuses on the conditions of the oceans, major waterways, and the atmosphere. The internship, which would have normally taken place in Juneau, Alaska, is being conducted remotely.

The parallels often drawn between a life sentence and the death penalty may be even more apt with COVID-19 sweeping through prisons.

That helps explain Minnesota Law Professor JaneAnne Murray’s relief when a federal judge last month reduced Deborah Jackson’s sentence from life without the possibility of parole to time served for a low-level, non-violent drug offense committed in 2009.

The recent start of a COVID-shortened Major League Baseball season has special meaning to rising 2L Tarun Sharma, who, before coming to Minnesota Law, worked for two MLB teams. He was an analytics intern for the Arizona Diamondbacks and a baseball operations assistant for the San Francisco Giants. Sharma recently answered a few questions about his interest in the “national pastime,” his experiences at Minnesota Law so far, and his current 1L summer clerkship through Twin Cities Diversity in Practice.

Dennis “Matt” Mathisen ’66, who found success in law, banking, and real estate development and was known for his active lifestyle and wide array of philanthropic interests, passed away July 22 at his home in Vail, Colorado. He was 80 and had lived for 18 years with a rare lymphoma, after being given a life expectancy of five years at his original diagnosis.

Ben Cooper, 2L, is spending the summer working for the legal department of Land O’Lakes, one of the nation’s premier agribusinesses. Headquartered in Arden Hills, Minnesota, the 99-year-old agricultural cooperative employs around 10,000 people and is one of 16 Fortune 500 companies in the state.

After following a fairly typical career path of corporate law firms and an in-house position in the Twin Cities in her first decade of practice, Cassie Fortin ’08 packed up and moved to Gothenburg, Sweden, where she became legal counsel for Volvo Group Truck Purchasing Legal and Compliance. She says she loves life and working in Sweden, where she’s building a career in the cutting-edge legal area of electromobility, helping to redefine the transportation industry. 

Four Minnesota Law students’ work on a recently released report on the conditions faced by members of the LGBT community in Honduras may prove helpful in establishing claims for asylum.

State, religious, and social forces in Honduras, one of the most violent countries in the world, make life extremely difficult for members of the LGBT community. As a result, some flee and seek asylum in the United States.