{"id":106,"date":"2017-06-02T14:18:14","date_gmt":"2017-06-02T18:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/?page_id=106"},"modified":"2018-04-18T11:13:50","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T15:13:50","slug":"commencement-speaker","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/commencement-speaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement Speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sozi Pedro Tulante
\n2018 Commencement Speaker<\/small><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sozi Pedro Tulante is\u200b a Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.\u00a0\u00a0From January 2016 to March 2018, he was\u200b Philadelphia\u2019s City Solicitor.\u00a0\u00a0He oversaw the Law Department and its 215 attorneys.\u00a0\u00a0As the City\u2019s head lawyer, he expanded the number of attorneys representing abused and neglected children in the Child Welfare Unit and created the an affirmative litigation unit, which filed major cases such as a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense for failing to report information necessary for local law enforcement to keep guns from the hands of people who have military convictions or have been dishonorably discharged.\u00a0\u00a0And a lawsuit against AG Jeff Sessions to challenge his attempt to withhold critical federal funds from Philadelphia based on the claim that it is a \u201csanctuary city.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0He argued various matters, including in the lawsuit against AG Sessions and in a matter to confirm an abuse finding against the caregivers of a two-year-old child who had gonorrhea and chlamydia.<\/p>\n

Before joining the City, he spent over five years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia, where he represented the government in criminal investigations and prosecutions\u200b.\u00a0\u00a0Prior to entering government service, he was a partner at Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller\u200b, focused on commercial litigation and high-profile pro bono cases including representing a detainee in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who was subsequently released.\u00a0\u00a0He began his legal career at another law firm and then clerked for the late Honorable Reginald C. Lindsay of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

He graduated\u00a0cum laude\u00a0from both Harvard Law School, and Harvard College. He is a graduate of Northeast High School \u200band Russell H. Conwell Middle Magnet School, both \u200bin Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

In 2017 he was named in “100 Most Influential Philadelphians,” by Philadelphia Magazine, and \u201cBest of the Bar,\u201d by the Philadelphia Business Journal.<\/p>\n

Sozi was born in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) and moved to North Philadelphia with his family when he was 8 as a political refugee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sozi Pedro Tulante 2018 Commencement Speaker Sozi Pedro Tulante is\u200b a Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.\u00a0\u00a0From January 2016 to March 2018, he was\u200b Philadelphia\u2019s City Solicitor.\u00a0\u00a0He oversaw …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"coauthors":[2],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/106\/revisions\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/commencement2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}