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Your Bar of Chocolate or Your Cup of Coffee May Be Causing Problems Somewhere: Deforestation & International Law

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On April 9, 2025, Professor Clement Kojo Akapame, a visiting scholar from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), presented a lecture titled “Your Bar of Chocolate or Your Cup of Coffee May Be Causing Problems Somewhere: Deforestation & International Law” to Temple Law students. Many students from GIMPA, as well as GIMPA’s Dean Kwaku Agyeman-Budu, also attended the lecture virtually by Zoom. The lecture, organized by Temple Law School’s International Legal Society, summarized the research that Professor Akapame has been conducting for nearly the past year, since his arrival on Temple’s campus in August 2024. Professor Akapame is a legal academic and thought leader who specializes in sustainability standards for the commercial trade of forest risk commodities, as well as forestry law and policy on environmental conservation. He is also a Partner at Taylore Crabbe Barristers and Solicitors, where he leads the firm’s Corporate Commercial and Consultancy practice team. During his lecture, Akapame identified issues of deforestation due to the exploitation of cocoa bean farmers by large companies in the chocolate industry, …

How the Tech Justice Clinic Opened Doors I Had Previously Closed

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Long before law school, I had aspirations of pursuing a PhD in Media Studies. After writing a Bachelor’s thesis on diva worship among gay men on Twitter (yes––it was Twitter when I wrote it!), I moved to Amsterdam where I wrote a Master’s thesis on Chechen police violence enacted against gay men via Grindr (a gay dating app). I had, and still have, big questions surrounding privatized media environments, freedom of expression, internet sovereignty, surveillance and control, and the interplay between physical bodies and their digital counterparts. I was heading down the academic pathway when Covid hit and changed the trajectory of my career.   Years later, I found myself in law school. I entered law school extremely skeptical of the field––a field that has a reputation for being rigid, limiting, and unyielding. I was convinced that this critical media training I went through would necessarily be cast aside in pursuit of more “concrete,” legal analysis. To be sure, my background in critical media studies did not come up much during my 1L year. But in …

The Trump Indictment: What’s Happened and What’s Next

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A New York grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump on fraud charges, marking the first time in US history that a former or current president has faced criminal charges. Professor Lauren Ouziel, a former federal prosecutor who teaches and writes about criminal law and criminal procedure at Temple Law, explains what’s happened so far and what’s likely to happen next. Temple Law School: How do indictments work? Lauren Ouziel: A grand jury, which is a group of randomly selected people (in New York, the group is composed of 23 people), meets to hear the testimony of witnesses and review any documentary evidence. At the close of the presentation of evidence, the prosecutors will usually then present the grand jury with a proposed indictment containing the charges against the defendant. The grand jury then deliberates and considers whether there is probable cause to believe the defendant committed the crimes charged in the indictment. The grand jury then votes, and if at least 12 of the grand jurors vote in favor, the indictment is issued. …

In their own words: Law students praise Temple Rome summer program

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Upon the conclusion of the 4-week study abroad program in Rome, students from Temple University Beasley School of Law, as well as other participant students from partnering law schools, reflected on their personal, professional, and academic experiences in Rome. Among the major benefits of the program, students attested to the professional advantages gained by enrolling in international law courses, arriving at Temple’s Rome campus each morning for class lectures, and living in the “Eternal City.” Emphasizing the value of networking with professors and guest lecturers, Alison Maser (a 2L Temple student) mentioned, “I feel like I have gained invaluable mentors through this experience.” Mariah McGuirk from Albany Law School articulated the intrinsic benefits of studying law abroad, as she experienced advantages inside and outside the classroom: “regardless of what the content is in the classes that we take, the skills we are developing and learning will help us through the rest of our educational career as well as our professional careers.” During the summer term, students engaged with guest lecturers, completed written assignments, delivered oral …

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Angela Sánchez LLM ’03 – How Temple Law Shaped Her Career

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After practicing in Colombia for nearly a decade, I attended Temple’s LL.M. program in 2003 and specialized in taxation. I passed the New York Bar exam in 2006 and am now a tax partner in PricewaterhouseCooper’s Tax & Legal Services Department in Colombia. In the past several years, legal professionals in Colombia are expected to have earned an LL.M. in the United States. I now understand why. Earning an LL.M. at Temple was a key professional and personal challenge for me, and it enabled me to prove to myself that I could adapt to a different educational style and then practice law in the global context. The professors’ teaching style is excellent and unlike any that I had experienced in Colombia. I now use my LL.M. degree to advise on a wide range of international tax matters. After graduation, I first worked at Deloitte in New York City, an opportunity I never would have had without the LL.M. International tax matters require an understanding of the different tax law systems, which I was able to …

A Love Letter to Philadelphia

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  From the Balkans to Latin America to Canada: Temple Law gave Safo Musta LLM ’02 her passport to the world. I will never forget the first time I set my eyes on Philly’s skyline. I was in a cab, exhausted and sleepless from a long flight, five thousand miles away from my hometown of Tirana, alone and nervous at the thought of the unknown ahead of me. Then the lights of a great city emerged in the distance. I felt as if I was thrown on the set of ″Philadelphia,‶ a legal drama from 1993, the only reference I had at the time to a city that would soon become very dear to me. The view before my eyes was stunning. An air of excitement filled my lungs. It was love at first sight. I arrived in Philly in August of 2001 to pursue an LL.M. in American and International Law at Temple Law School, a dream made possible thanks to the prestigious Ron Brown scholarship program of the US Department of Education for …

Passing the California Bar Exam

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I enrolled in LL.M. in U.S. Law in May, 2015 aiming to become a competent lawyer who can discuss legal matters on an equal basis with U.S. lawyers working for a U.S. affiliate. Due to increased opportunities to collaborate and work with foreign lawyers, I became aware that obtaining knowledge about U.S law was essential to pursue my career as a legal professional in the long run. The learning environment at TUJ was ideal for me because the lectures were mostly scheduled for evening, which allowed me to learn at TUJ and earn LL.M. while working full-time without leaving Japan. Although I planned to manage both work and study, in reality, especially at the beginning I spent a large amount of time for extensive reading required for each class, which sometimes challenged me in balancing among work, study and life. Despite the busy days, I always looked forward to attending live classes and enjoyed learning U.S. laws and cases. The live classes at TUJ greatly helped me understand the principles of U.S. laws and enabled …

Then & Now: Immigration Legal Advocacy at the Mexico-U.S. Border

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Part one of a two-part post on the changing asylum landscape under the new administration. The Biden administration has signaled its intention to repair the U.S. asylum system. As law students who worked directly with asylum-seeking families, this is welcomed news. Over the last four years, the Trump administration intentionally increased the hardships that asylum seekers face. It adapted harsh, inhumane immigration policies with the express goal of deterring people from seeking asylum in the U.S. One such policy was the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program. This policy treated displaced persons, including women, infant children, and the elderly, as dangerous adversaries that the country must defend itself against, and it caused widespread and profound human suffering at the U.S.-Mexico border. MPP is a Trump-era policy enacted in January 2019 which, for the first time, required asylum seekers to wait for their asylum hearings outside the United States at the U.S.-Mexico border. This policy impacted tens of thousands of asylum seekers. They were forced to build makeshift refugee camps …

Temple Law’s Integrated Trial Advocacy Program

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Temple Law School is nationally recognized as a leader in trial advocacy and Temple Law graduates are reputed to be excellent trial lawyers.  Temple’s Integrated Trial Advocacy Program (ITAP) is a big reason why. Recently, ITAP classes have been looking a little bit different as students learn how to conduct trials over Zoom and other platforms. What has stayed the same, however, is the immersive and unique experience. ITAP is a two-semester-long block of classes that Temple students can take during their second year. The program is set up as a mix of doctrinal/fundamental classes and practical/experiential classes. The first semester classes consist of evidence, trial advocacy I, and a lecture class that covers many aspects of litigation. The second semester classes are civil procedure II, trial advocacy II, and a continuation of the lecture classes. The classes are designed so that each week you will learn the theory in one class, and you will put it into practice in the other. For example, you would learn how to introduce medical records in court during …

The South Asian Law Students Association | Student Organization Voices Series

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  Your Name: Reena Naik Graduation Year: May 2021 Name of Organization: The South Asian Law Students Association Position in Organization: President Temple Law School: When did you join this organization? Reena Naik: I joined the South Asian Law Students Association as a 1L. I first heard about SALSA at the student organization fair during 1L orientation. The members of SALSA were incredibly welcoming and approachable. I later became a 1L Representative as I wanted to have a more active role in the organization. TLS: Why did you decide to join this group? RN: I decided to become a SALSA member because it truly felt like a family and my “home away from home.” As a native of Birmingham, Alabama, I was completely new to Philadelphia. Luckily, I found some of my closest friends and mentors through SALSA which helped ease the transition to a new city and starting law school. I also joined SALSA because I am a first-generation law student. I knew very few lawyers prior to law school and wanted to expand …