When Reda Taleb (McLean Class, 2015) talks about “giving back,” she isn’t just reciting a slogan — she’s living by example. The daughter of immigrants from Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, Taleb’s parents, along with her six older siblings, laid roots in Dearborn’s south end, an area known for its pollution-emitting factory smoke stacks and community of Arab Americans seeking the “American Dream.”
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To describe the most recent couple years in Jigisa Patel-Dookhoo’s life as a whirlwind would be an understatement of epic proportions. Many people in the world went into a sort of hibernation during the pandemic. Not the Hon. Jigisa Patel-Dookhoo (Coleman Class, 2009).
Kara (Henigan) Hope has come a long way since that fateful day when she was called upon to stand and recite in the late Professor Peter Jason’s Contracts I class. An introvert by nature, Kara was beyond nervous as she responded, but she learned something important about herself that day – she could do it.
Neena Sterling (Gray Class, 2022) knew she wanted to be a lawyer since she was a young girl. When she graduated from college she was on track, but ended up hitting some bumps and taking time off to work for a year. In 2016, she had a daughter, and her dream of law school was put on the back burner.
At the end of his first year elected the 115th President of the New Jersey State Senate, Senator Nicholas Scutari is leading the upper chamber for the 220th Legislative Session. Scutari was first elected to the State Senate in 2003 to represent the 22nd District, which includes the Middlesex County municipalities of Dunellen and Middlesex, the Somerset County municipalities of Green Brook and North Plainfield, and the Union County municipalities of Clark, Fanwood, Linden, Plainfield, Rahway, Scotch Plains, and Winfield. A lifelong Linden resident, Senator Scutari began his career in public service in 1994 when he was elected to the Linden Board of Education. Senator Scutari was elected to the Union County Freeholder Board in 1996. He served as Union County Freeholder Vice Chairman in 1998 and as Union County Freeholder Chairman in 1999. He is the youngest person ever to serve as Freeholder Chairman in Union County. As Senator to the 22nd Legislative District, Senator Scutari has spearheaded several initiatives that benefit both the citizens within the 22nd district and the State of New Jersey as a whole. He is a strong advocate for insurance reform and has sponsored legislation to create a more consumer-friendly environment. Another priority for him is having a fair, competent, and qualified Judiciary in New Jersey. Senator Scutari was the longest serving Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in New Jersey history. He continues to be committed to the thorough vetting and scrutiny of judicial nominees, cabinet nominations, and other gubernatorial appointments. He also recognizes the importance of caring for the ill and infirmed in the State. To that end, was the primary sponsor of the ‘New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act,’ which allows New Jersey citizens suffering from chronic and debilitating illnesses, for whom currently available treatments and medications have proven ineffective, to receive medicinal marijuana to treat and help alleviate their symptoms. Senator Scutari has been a long-standing opponent of draconian drug policies and this landmark piece of legislation served as a first step in getting cannabis outside of the underground. In 2021, Senator Scutari spearheaded legislation that would create the legal and regulatory framework for the cannabis industry in the state of New Jersey. This landmark legislation helped to create thousands of jobs in a new industry sector while righting countless legal injustices that people have faced generationally. Also, a strong advocate for quality education, Senator Scutari has supported a number of pieces of legislation that would provide funding and expand programs to ensure that New Jersey citizens receive the high-quality education they deserve. Senator Scutari is a graduate of Linden High School where he was captain of the Varsity Wrestling Team. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Kean College in less than three years at the age of only 20. He received his Masters Degree in less that one year at Rutgers’s University at the age of 21. He earned his Law Degree from Cooley Law School and was awarded the John D. Voelker Award as the school’s Outstanding Law Review Associate. A practicing attorney with an office located in Linden, Senator Scutari is a Certified Civil Trial Attorney certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Finally, Senator Scutari is also an Eagle Scout since 1984.
The first person in her family to attend law school, Alyssa Emery will graduate from Cooley Law School in August—and after receiving a federal clerkship through the “Just the Beginning” Program, will do legal writing and research this summer for a district court judge out of Washington, D.C. “I interviewed with another candidate before deciding on the one with D.C, but there was something about the way the staff talked about the judge that I knew this was the position for me,” she says. Emery launched her academic trajectory with undergrad and master’s degrees in philosophy, cum laude, from Wayne State University. “I’ve always been someone who has asked ‘why’ and philosophy showed me I wasn’t alone,” she says. “I love learning and obtaining knowledge. Philosophy is a bottomless well of knowledge.” That same passion for knowledge drew Emery to the legal field.
Elizabeth Devolder (Hughes Class, 2016) was nothing short of a superstar in law school. She excelled in classes and student competitions, even winning a national championship in the American Bar Association’s 2015 Client Counseling Competition. On top of that, she was selected as one of National Jurist’s 25 future lawyers honored in the national publication’s inaugural “Law Student of the Year” feature in 2016.
Recent Cooley alumna Veller Morris almost went into a career in radiology—and it was sheer serendipity that she instead took a legal studies program.
Scott Nowling who enjoyed a 27-year career in field sales management at Johnson & Johnson before studying law, recently graduated from Cooley Law School and was named summa cum laude of the Samuel Blatchford Class during a graduation ceremony at Michigan State University Auditorium on May 12. He ranked first with a cumulative grade point average of 4.0, one of 17 Cooley students who have graduated with a 4.0 GPA since the first graduating class in 1976.
Growing up, the only thing Cooley Law School graduate Connor Porzig cared about was basketball. “I like to think of it as my first love. Whether I was watching it on TV or playing outside, it was something that I understood and had a passion for from the beginning,” says Porzig.
