George Conk Receives Rutgers Law Public Service Award

Adjunct Professor George Conk Receives Public Service Award - Fordham Law:
Professor George Conk received the 2013 Neisser Public Service Award through the Neisser Public Interest Center at Rutgers-Newark School of Law. Named after the late acting dean and longtime professor Eric R. Neisser, the award is presented annually to a Rutgers Law graduate who has demonstrated outstanding public service. Conk received the award at the school’s First Monday event, which recognizes the beginning of a new U.S. Supreme Court term and kicks off the year’s public interest programming. 

Conk, a 1974 Rutgers-Newark graduate, gave the keynote address entitled “People’s Electric – The Legacy of Engaged Legal Education at Rutgers-Newark Law School in the 1960’s and 1970’s.” Conk authored a history of the school which appeared in the Fordham Urban Law Journal last year. He presented the Newark school’s history, highlighting the dramatic impact of its clinical program on criminal justice, women’s rights, open housing, parity for urban public schools, and affirmative action.

Conk’s address was followed by a panel discussion featuring fellow graduates of Rutgers-Newark whose careers exemplify its mission: Donna Lieberman is Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. The NYCLU represented plaintiffs in the landmark Floyd v. City of New York which found unconstitutional the stop and frisk practices of the NYPD. Other panelists included Dale Jones and Ollis Douglas of the Capital Defense Unit of the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender which defended all 225 capital cases from 1982 to the 2007 repeal of the death penalty. CUNY Law School Professor Victor Goode discussed the Rutgers Minority Student Program, which has graduated 2,500 lawyers since its founding.

Professor Conk, an Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow at the Stein Center for Law & Ethics, came to Fordham in 2002. He teaches torts, product liability, remedies, and professional responsibility. His scholarly work has been published by the Yale Law Journal,  UCLA Law Review, Penn State Law Review, Seton Hall Law Review, and by Peking University Press. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics. He serves on the editorial board of the New Jersey Law Journal as a New Jersey State Bar Association designee.

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