Law student starts nonprofit to empower, educate Tanzanian women

Photo by Ashley Golledge

In Tanzania, the government bans young mothers from attending state schools. But a KU Law student who has lived and worked in the East African nation is doing her part to ensure pregnant women can continue their education.

Third-year law student Paeten Denning recently founded a nonprofit organization called Miracles Are Real Because Love Exists (M.A.R.B.L.E.), which provides vocational education, housing and resources for pregnant young women in Tanzania.

“What I’d like to do is create a place for young mothers to go, feel safe and find stability,” said Denning, who is from Nevada, Missouri. “Our goals are educate, employ, empower. I want every girl who leaves M.A.R.B.L.E. to feel empowered.”

The text in Swahili translates to “Women’s rights are rights for all.” Photo courtesy of Paeten Denning.

A 1961 law allows state schools in Tanzania to ban young mothers from attending. Over the past decade more than 55,000 pregnant schoolgirls have been expelled from school, according to a 2013 report by the Center for Reproductive Rights. Despite condemnation from human rights groups, Tanzanian President John Magufuli has enforced this law since taking office in 2015. “As long as I am president … no pregnant student will be allowed to return to school … After getting pregnant, you are done,” he said during a public rally in 2017.

Denning has witnessed the effects of this policy firsthand on three separate trips to Tanzania. She was inspired to found M.A.R.B.L.E. during her most recent visit. Denning spent the summer between her first and second years of law school working at the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association, a local nongovernmental organization (NGO) that provides legal aid to women and children.

Paeten Denning practices beading with a local female ran co-op in Tanzania. The young women staying at M.A.R.B.L.E will learn beading at the vocational school, The Faraja Center.

“I just started noticing the lack of resources for young mothers,” she said. “I decided to find a way to provide housing for these teens who are pregnant.”

M.A.R.B.L.E. officially became an NGO in February after Denning took steps to incorporate, submit paperwork to establish nonprofit status, recruit board members and gain approval from the mayor of Arusha, Tanzania. Denning and the board aspire to help young mothers continue their education at the local Faraja Center vocational school while living in free housing provided by M.A.R.B.L.E. They hope to open a house in Arusha by May 2019 that could house up to 10 young mothers at a time.

“We figured we could help the most people in Arusha,” she said. “It is one of the biggest cities in Tanzania. Because of its location near the northern border, we could help girls from Kenya, too, as well as surrounding rural areas.”

So far, M.A.R.B.L.E. has raised more than $10,000 in donations. Denning hopes to increase that amount to $50,000 by the end of 2018 to pay for housing, educational costs, school clothes and food.

Arusha, Tanzania. Photo courtesy of Paeten Denning.

After graduation, Denning plans to move to Tanzania with her husband for a few years to manage M.A.R.B.L.E. full-time. Her husband will serve as the organization’s case coordinator. Denning holds KU undergraduate degrees in social welfare and African studies and honed her Kiswahili language skills during a 2013 trip to Tanzania on a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship.

She said her KU Law classmates have been supportive of her NGO. Two members of the board also have ties to KU Law: 3L Derek Depew and SJD candidate Bander Almohammadi, LLM’18.

“Everyone in my class knows about it and is involved in their own way,” Denning said. “It is really cool to have the support of the KU Law community.”

— By Ashley Golledge

KU Law alumnus teaches clinic students about consumer defense

Bill Walberg, L’15, speaks to the Legal Aid Clinic seminar class.

KU Legal Aid Clinic alumnus Bill Walberg, L’15, believes all consumers should have appropriate counsel when defending their rights. He recently returned to Green Hall to teach students the fundamentals of debt collection defense as the clinic considers taking on consumer defense cases.

Walberg is an associate at Evans & Mullinix in Shawnee. He practices in the areas of civil litigation, collection law, business law, corporate law, creditor rights and estate planning.

During his visit to KU Law, he told Legal Aid Clinic students that consumers should have the ability to access legal resources to understand the process and their rights. He reviewed the phases of a typical debt litigation case, which can include a contract, initial collection, pre-lawsuit negotiation, lawsuit and post-judgment execution.

Walberg remembers the Legal Aid Clinic as his best experience as a KU Law student.

“It gave me an opportunity to get real courtroom experience that you really can’t get in any other classroom situation,” he said. “I really, really believe in the clinic experience.”

Through the Legal Aid Clinic, KU Law students provide legal assistance for low-income clients at the Lawrence Municipal Court and Douglas County District Court.

“I highly encourage any law student to do some sort of clinic that gets them inside the courtroom, especially if they want to do litigation,” Walberg said. “If you get that experience in law school, you are 10 steps ahead of your competition going into the job market.”

Bill Walberg, L’15, speaks to the Legal Aid Clinic seminar class.

Clinic Director Melanie DeRousse and Associate Clinic Director Meredith Schnug taught Walberg while he was in law school.

“If I recall correctly, he had zero interest in doing litigation. He mentioned that he was pretty petrified of being in a courtroom,” Schnug said. “He was an excellent clinic student. After doing the semester and doing actual work with clients, he grew to love that type of law. Now, he’s in court all the time and loves it.”

DeRousse and Schnug approached Walberg about coming to speak to the Legal Aid Clinic seminar class because of his knowledge of consumer defense. Though this is the first time Schnug has invited a former student to teach current students, she hopes it won’t be the last. She also enjoys seeing former students in the courtroom.

“It is really neat once the students graduate,” Schnug said. “We see our former students in court, which is really rewarding when we are on a docket together.”

Through Walberg’s lecture, students enrolled in the Legal Aid Clinic seminar class had the opportunity to see how their day-to-day responsibilities in the clinic will translate into their future practice.

“When they first graduate – and even years from now – the experiences that they are having right now really shape how they perceive the practice and shape their professional identity,” Schnug said.

Going forward, the Legal Aid Clinic hopes to continue to learn about debt collection defense and potentially take on clients for this area of the practice.

— By Ashley Hocking

Three new scholars bolster KU Law faculty

Three new faculty members with diverse experience in teaching, scholarship and practice started at KU Law this fall.

Kyle VelteKyle Velte joins KU Law as an associate professor of law, teaching Evidence, Torts and Employment Discrimination.

Velte holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law. Her scholarship – which examines the intersection of sexuality, gender and the law – has appeared in the Yale Law & Policy Review, Brooklyn Law Review and Connecticut Law Review, among other journals. Her recent work focuses on the perceived tensions between religious freedom and LGBT civil rights along three axes: law, policy and theory.

Velte previously served as a visiting assistant professor at Texas Tech University School of Law and an assistant professor of the practice in the Legal Externship Program at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. Before entering academia, Velte practiced complex commercial litigation at Reilly Pozner LLP in Denver. She completed judicial clerkships with Justice Alex Martinez of the Colorado Supreme Court and Judge Roxanne Bailin of the 20th Judicial District in Boulder, Colorado.

Shawn WattsShawn Watts joined KU Law’s outstanding Lawyering faculty, teaching three sections of Lawyering Skills. He will also conduct a mediation clinic based on the clinic he helped lead at Columbia Law School. Eventually, he will also participate in KU’s Tribal Judicial Support Clinic.

A graduate of Columbia Law School, Watts served as associate director of Columbia’s Edson Queiroz Foundation Mediation Program. He has mediated in the New York City Civil Court, Harlem Small Claims Court and the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Resolution.

Watts developed and taught a course in Native American Peacemaking, which is a traditional indigenous form of dispute resolution. Prior to joining the Columbia Law faculty, he practiced in the finance and bankruptcy group at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton in New York, where he also specialized in federal Indian law and tribal finance. Watts is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

Franciska Coleman joins KU Law as a visiting assistant professor. She is teaching Constitutional Law and Torts, filling in for Professor Stephen McAllister during his three-year leave of absence to serve as U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas.

Coleman comes to Green Hall from Yonsei Law School in Seoul, South Korea, where she taught courses in constitutional law, criminal procedure and political philosophy as an assistant professor. This spring, she was a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. Her scholarship lies at the intersection of pluralism, poverty and criminal law. Coleman is interested in the ability of racial minorities and impoverished communities to obtain representation within a capitalistic democracy and to engage in authentic acts of self-governance.

A graduate of Harvard Law School and the education doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania, Coleman previously practiced at Covington & Burling in Washington D.C., where she was a member of the insurance litigation and appellate practice groups.

Alumnus creates fund to sustain KU Law faculty excellence

James Riedy, L'77

Photo courtesy of McDermott Will & Emery law firm

James Riedy practices law in Washington, D.C. But as a Kansas native and 1977 graduate of KU Law, he’s committed to ensuring students from his home state have access to an outstanding legal education and local employment opportunities.

To that end, he created the James A. Riedy Fellowship with a $100,000 pledge to KU Endowment. The teaching fellowship will be awarded to KU Law faculty for three-year terms to cover salary support, travel and other costs.

“It is important that residents of Kansas are confident that they may remain in Kansas and obtain an excellent legal education,” said Riedy, L’77. “Financial support for KU Law faculty enables the school to hire and retain top-notch attorneys to teach, and that is one element of sending confidence to Kansas residents who want to enter the legal profession.”

Of course, top-notch faculty benefit all students. KU Law fills each year’s entering class with a mix of Kansans and nonresidents, and the school’s graduates live and work in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, three U.S. territories and 24 foreign countries. Riedy’s goal is to ensure that graduates leave Green Hall with a legal education that opens doors in the markets of their choice.

He is a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP in Washington, D.C., where he focuses his practice on international tax matters. Prior to entering private practice, Riedy was a lawyer in the Appellate Section of the Tax Division at the Department of Justice in Washington D.C.

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Student Spotlight: Jacob Elberg’s legal experience crosses three state lines

The experience on 3L Jacob Elberg’s resume traverses state lines. So far in his career, Elberg has held legal positions in Kansas, Florida and New Jersey.

Before going to law school, Elberg spent a year as an intern for the Douglas County District Court in Lawrence. This summer, he split his time between Florida and New Jersey.

Elberg’s hometown is Weston, Florida. For the first half of the summer, Elberg was a summer law clerk at Thomas & LoCicero PL in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Thomas & LoCicero PL is a law firm focused on business litigation, media law and intellectual property law.

At Thomas & LoCicero PL, Elberg enjoyed being exposed to situations he has not encountered in law school, such as partner meetings for case strategy, extensive preparation for oral arguments and preparation for depositions or mediation. He said a rewarding aspect of his internship was seeing his work used by the attorneys at the firm to assist them in grasping or briefing high-profile cases.

As a summer law clerk, he researched various legal matters, drafted legal memoranda, attended civil legal proceedings and edited legal briefs.

Elberg hopes to pursue a career in media and intellectual property law litigation.

“Working at TLo provided me a great opportunity to work in the specific area of law I am interested in,” Elberg said.

After the first half of the summer was over, he headed to Trenton, New Jersey for the second consecutive summer to serve as a judicial intern for Judge Freda Wolfson at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

Jacob Elberg served as a judicial intern for Judge Freda Wolfson at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

“I spent a majority of my formative legal experience over the last two years with Judge Wolfson,” Elberg said. “I experienced immense personal growth. My research skills, writing skills and academic achievements have dramatically improved.”

Elberg’s responsibilities as a judicial intern included drafting opinions, orders and legal memoranda, researching legal doctrines, completing various assignments, observing civil and criminal legal proceedings and observing settlement conferences.

“It seemed daunting at first, but Judge Wolfson and her law clerks are hands on in helping the interns in any way to comprehend an issue and complete an assignment,” Elberg said. “In that regard, the open-door policy in chambers was nice. So while there is pressure to meet high expectations with the work we turn out, there is plenty of comfort because we have the support of everyone in chambers to help improve our work product.”

Completing both of his summer internships helped Elberg gain confidence and become a more strategic legal thinker.

“My love and respect for the law has also been further solidified,” he said.

Elberg said the best professional advice he’s ever received is to use every internship and legal experience to foster meaningful relationships with those he meets.

“Whether it is other lawyers or legal assistants, that particular relationship could lead to a myriad of opportunities,” Elberg said. “So, in that regard, this could extend to being kind and humble with everyone you meet because you never know where it could lead you.”

Elberg received his undergraduate degree in communications studies from KU in 2016.

“After having a great experience as an undergrad, KU Law seemed like the right place for me,” Elberg said.

At KU Law, he is co-founder and director of communications for the Mindfulness in Law Society, co-founder and former president of the Jewish Legal Society and a member of the Student Intellectual Property Law Association.

Last semester, he co-authored a scholarly paper called, “Making @YourState ‘Friends’ With #Privacy: Rights and Wrongs In State Social Media Privacy Password Statutes” with Genelle Belmas, a media law scholar and associate professor of journalism at KU.

Professor Genelle Belmas, Jacob Elberg and Professor Clay Calvert from the University of Florida attend the 2018 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference. Belmas and Elberg co-authored a scholarly paper.

The paper evaluates the legal landscape of social media privacy in terms of vintage communication laws, cases and state statutes, and makes recommendations for crafting new statutes. Elberg and Belmas were inspired to write the paper after talking about hot topics in media law over coffee.

The paper was selected by the Law and Policy Division of the 2018 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference. Elberg and Belmas presented it at the conference on Aug. 8, 2018 in Washington, D.C.

“A donor sponsored me to go to the conference, and I am thankful to Dean Stephen Mazza and Dean Crystal Mai for their help in sorting everything out,” Elberg said.

In addition to editing and preparing the paper for publication this fall, Elberg will be taking classes for his third year of law school and working at Legal Services for Students as a legal intern. After he graduates and takes the bar exam, Elberg plans to apply for judicial clerkships and other legal opportunities.

— By Ashley Hocking

This post is the eleventh and final in a series highlighting the diverse internships and jobs KU Law students and recent graduates were engaged in over the summer and early in their careers. Check out earlier posts from this series about Omar Husain, James Hampton, Malika Baker, Lindsay Strong, Arturo Garcia, Jessie Pringle, Madeline Heeren, Miranda Luster, Becky Howlett and Caroline Kastor. 

Student Spotlight: Caroline Kastor balances law school, athletics and family

Caroline Kastor is a woman who wears many hats.

She is an aspiring legal professional, a former professional soccer player, an academic, a wife and a mom.

Kastor is working towards the trifecta of higher education at the University of Kansas. She already has an undergraduate and a graduate degree from KU under her belt. In a few years, Kastor will have her third degree — this time in law.

Caroline Kastor (center) used to play professional soccer for the FC Kansas City Blues.

“KU Law is so reputable and well-loved that deciding to apply was a no-brainer,” Kastor said.

A second-year law student and Wichita native, Kastor spent the summer doing legal research as a law clerk at Stevens & Brand LLP in Lawrence.

“I was able to work on a variety of projects for different attorneys at the firm and learned a ton because of the array of projects that were assigned,” she said. “I was also given opportunities for hands-on experience, like the option to attend client meetings or sit in on client phone calls. It was invaluable.”

Kastor said she gained a better understanding of the practical side of law, learned about the workings of a firm and created valuable relationships with attorneys and staff through her position at Stevens & Brand. The most rewarding part of her role was helping solve problems that arose.

Caroline Kastor celebrates her baby shower with her husband Bobby and stepdaughters, Tess and Maeve.

“Being able to find answers that can help a client and really feeling like you made a difference — especially when there is an observable outcome of the work you contributed on someone’s behalf,” Kastor said.

In addition to her work at the law firm this summer, Kastor is also very involved with Kansas Athletics. During her first year of law school, she balanced her classes with a position as a graduate assistant for the women’s soccer team. Kastor’s history as a student athlete at KU and a professional soccer player for the FC Kansas City Blues made her an excellent candidate to work with the athletics department. She enjoys helping student athletes and making a positive impact on the soccer program.

“I know from experience how hard it can be to balance both school and sports,” Kastor said.

Shortly after finishing her summer clerkship at Stevens & Brand, Kastor gave birth to a baby boy. Kastor anticipates that balancing law school and a newborn will be challenging, but she has a great support system.

This summer, Caroline Kastor gave birth to Robert “Bobby” Kastor shortly after finishing up her legal clerkship.

“I imagine the advice ‘sleep when they sleep’ will be more like ‘read when they sleep’ for a law student,” Kastor joked. “Luckily, I have great immediate support from my amazing husband and two stepdaughters — as well as great support from the community at the law school and where I work.”

For the remainder of her time in law school, Kastor plans to continue working at Kansas Athletics and searching for opportunities to get more legal experience. She is also exploring her interests in the fields of estate planning, elder law and family law.

Kastor hopes to one day practice law in an area that makes a difference as well as energizes and excites her.

— By Ashley Hocking 

This post is the tenth in a series highlighting the diverse internships and jobs KU Law students and recent graduates were engaged in over the summer and early in their careers. Check out earlier posts from this series about Omar Husain, James Hampton, Malika Baker, Lindsay Strong, Arturo Garcia, Jessie Pringle, Madeline Heeren, Miranda Luster and Becky Howlett.