And I am very pleased to welcome the new Dean of Penn Carey Law, Sophia Z. Lee. Professor Lee, a member of our faculty for 14 years, is a dis-tinguished scholar, a tremendous teacher and mentor, and a thoughtful leader at the Law School and University.

Sophia inherits the role of stewarding our wonderful, thriving community, which is as talented, impactful, and diverse as ever. We continue to attract incredibly bright students, support them with unprecedented levels of financial aid, and launch them into meaningful careers in the public and private sectors, both in this country and around the world. Our faculty are national thought leaders and first-class teachers, and our dedicated staff ensure that the Law School works effectively and innovatively to meet the needs of our student body and the larger profession. Alumni from multiple decades spanning over 70 years have continued to engage with and support our current students in ways that I appreciate now more than ever. Thank you for all that you do to support your alma mater.

arlier this year, Liz Magill, University of Pennsylvania President, Trustees University Professor, and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, became Penn’s ninth president. A legal scholar and inspiring leader, Magill came to Penn after serving as Executive Vice President and Provost at the University of Virginia and, prior to that, as the Richard E. Lang Professor and Dean of the Stanford Law School.

In an effort to learn more about the University’s new president and her legal and leadership experience, the Law School’s Office of Communications conducted the following Q&A with Magill:

About 95 percent of civil cases are adjudicated in state courts, she said, but the majority of low-income Americans cannot afford civil legal proceedings. “We haven’t updated our justice system in centuries,” Chief Justice McCormack said. “There’s no Netflix or Uber or Amazon-access to justice.”

Barriers to justice, particularly in the American civil sector, and discussions on how to tackle them were a central theme of the conference. One solution came in the form of a groundbreaking announcement: The FPI is launching its own project, called the Future of the Profession Lab.

ost elderly Americans do not relish placement in a nursing home.

Seniors who rely on Medicaid, however, are often funneled into such facilities, said Kevin Prindiville L’03. He serves as Executive Director of Justice in Aging, a nationwide legal organization that advocates for the rights of older adults. Prindiville is familiar with the nursing home issue, which gained newfound national attention after a staggering number of residents died during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The preferred alternative, he said, is home care. “People don’t want to be in a nursing facility,” he said. “But we haven’t built the system to provide care at home—we haven’t created financing and benefits programs. We haven’t supported caregivers to be able to provide at home through paid leave policies, or … new public systems that will improve access to that care at home.”

Addressing the problem of luxury emissions, she believes, could be one key to igniting a larger cultural shift against excessive carbon emissions. Welton is in the midst of a project examining the moral and social underpinnings of possible new climate policy and the political economy of passing laws addressing luxury emissions, which include the use of private yachts and jets, along with the ownership of multiple homes and cars.

“The top 10 percent of emitters have emitted half the carbon of the past 30 years, and carbon footprints at the top are 100 times bigger,” Welton said. “There’s been a lot of chatter and analysis exposing these numbers, but much less discussion about what law and policy should do about it.”

s Director of the Domestic Violence Law Clinic at the University of Arizona’s law school, Professor Negar Katirai L’05 has overseen dozens of order of protection cases for domestic violence victims. In her leadership role, she has also tried to systemically address, and thereby prevent, the cycle of violence she so often hears about from clients of her clinic.

While the clinic focuses on handling orders of protection, which includes witness and trial preparation for those cases, it also provides information, advice, and referrals regarding matters such as divorce, custody, landlord/tenant issues, harassment, and sexual assault.

In a notable endeavor, Katirai traveled to Australia last year as a Fulbright scholar to research the country’s approach to fatality reviews of domestic violence cases. The experience was an eye-opening lesson in how nationwide data can be used to potentially save lives through new policy.

“The training that we have received as a cohort is the most sustained and intensive DEI-centered training I have ever experienced,” said Andrew Bookbinder L’24, a participating fellow and rising 3L. “The program gives me hope for the evolution and direction of programming designed to support students at Penn Carey Law.”

The fellowship is an outgrowth of the Morgan Lewis Impact Fund for Racial Justice. In June 2021, the firm gave the Law School a multiyear $250,000 gift to advance racial justice and anti-racism efforts.

The clinic’s name was inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous quotation that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” It launched in the spring with eight law students and provides legal support to members of the Philadelphia community seeking redress for racial subordination in the areas of education, public safety, and economic, health, and environmental justice.

Practice Associate Professor of Law Cara McClellan GEd’12 is the director of the new clinic, which was established in response to students’ requests for more emphasis on civil rights law.

ophia Z. Lee has been named Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, effective July 1, 2023. Lee, currently a Professor of Law with a secondary appointment in history, has been a member of the Penn Carey Law faculty since 2009. Penn President Liz Magill made the announcement on April 4, 2023.

“Sophia Lee is a proven leader and a consensus builder,” said Magill. “A superb scholar and teacher of constitutional and administrative law, she is deeply dedicated to Penn Carey Law and to the people—faculty, staff, students, and alumni—who are central to its work. She embodies Penn Carey Law’s core values. Sophia Lee is the right leader at the right time to elevate Penn Carey Law’s status to even greater heights.”

Lee joined the Penn Carey Law faculty in 2009 as an Assistant Professor of Law. She has held a variety of leadership and service roles at both the school and University level. She was the Law School’s Deputy Dean from 2015 to 2017, serving a full two-year term under Dean Theodore W. Ruger.

ittle in the early background of Shira Perlmutter L’83 suggested she was destined for a distinguished career in the law. Her lifelong passion is music, and she majored in linguistics as an undergraduate at Harvard, where she sang soprano in the University Choir and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum. It was only when she was pursuing graduate work in voice performance at Temple University, however, that her ambition to be a classical singer began to waver. Although her dedication to music remained, she cast about for an alternative career.

“I had never thought about being a lawyer,” she said. “I didn’t know any lawyers, and there were none in my family.”

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