Recent Cooley Law School graduate Aimee Lorencz is turning years of professional experience and a passion for justice into a future career in criminal law. In a feature published by Legal News, Lorencz reflects on her journey from working as a correctional officer and CPS investigator to earning her law degree while balancing family, work, and leadership responsibilities. As a weekend/blended student, Lorencz immersed herself in hands-on learning opportunities including externships, moot court competitions, the Cooley Innocence Project, and student leadership roles. Her experiences strengthened her passion for criminal law, ethics, and advocacy. Read more about Aimee's story here: https://legalnews.com/Home/Articles?DataId=1606383.
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Of course, everything is online. While that statement is not actually true, most materials a practicing attorney are looking for can be found in a digital format. The questions are where to look and what resources are available?
Coolcat has been around since 1990, yet whenever I write about it, I say “Coolcat, the library online catalog.” It replaces the paper card catalog which is now something that very few current students even remember. When the Library developed its first version of the online catalog, it was likely one of the first 25 academic law libraries to do so. The visionary leadership of Judith Ansbach, with librarians Pam Bartlett and Rita Marsala, as well as staff member Susan Oliver, helped us quickly transition to the newly emerging high-tech record-keeping system that we still call Coolcat.
On January 4, 2021, the Brennan Law Library on the Lansing campus opened in a new location. Gone are the days of endless miles of shelving and study carrels in every corner to meet the needs of any type of studier. The new space is compact with movable compact shelving housing most of the collection.
The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has many keyed into the impact on global oil supply, but the U.S. National Security Council is renewing its focus on another area of national security concern – the global water supply. Cooley Law Professor Michael C.H. McDaniel, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Homeland Strategy Defense, spoke with Tom Jordan and Kevin Dietz of WJR-AM Detroit, sharing his perspective on this potential threat.
As the Russia-Ukraine War continues, Cooley Law School Professors David L. Finnegan and retired Brigadier General and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense Michael C.H. McDaniel, experts on international law, have created a video-blog series sharing various interpretations of international law as it pertains to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The first three video-blog posts take a look at three important topics when looking into the violation of war crimes. Hosted on Cooley’s blog site, the video blogs also can be found on the Cooley Law School YouTube channel and are available for members of the media to share with their audiences.
Following the April 4 shooting death of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya by a Grand Rapids police officer, many have expressed frustration over the use of deadly force, questioning police policy on de-escalation, as well as frustration over length of time to conduct and release information from the investigation.
Robin Sutara (Witherell Class, 2010) has always been a trailblazer. Perhaps an unassuming trailblazer, but she has definitely carved out a career and life path that has taken her to extraordinary places and heights. Sutara, who twice graduated from Cooley, garnering her JD in 2010 and then returning for her Masters of Law in Intellectual Property and graduating in 2013, was named as Microsoft UK’s first Chief Data Officer in January 2021. She is responsible for collaborating with Microsoft’s customers throughout the UK, learning about how they leverage data and artificial intelligence, and working closely with them to create new solutions for a variety of functions and across multiple industries, including retail, banking and healthcare. Sutara has been with Microsoft for more than two decades, serving in a number of leadership positions on the way to her current role with the company. Sutara’s previous roles included consumer support engineer, technical account manager, business operations manager and chief of staff, where she was responsible for all operations and business management functions for the corporate vice president for the Azure Data engineering organization. Azure is a cloud computing service operated by Microsoft for applications management via Microsoft-managed data centers.
When you read articles featuring Jon Kohler (Adams Class, 1997) about his success as a land broker, you read about the deals that include large swaths of land in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. You also read about the value of the land and how the deals were brokered. What you don’t read about in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and others is Kohler’s passion for conservation and the need to rehabilitate and maintain many of the lands his company brokers in their most natural states.
Sometimes seminal moments in one’s life can change a career path. For Rabih Hamawi (Story Class, 2015), who at the time, owned and operated an insurance agency in Livonia, Michigan, it was a not-so-ironic realization that led him to now battle in court against insurance companies on behalf of his clients.
