2015-2019
“I immediately felt that RWU Law saw and heard my passion, my desire to change my world – and then they made it possible.”
~ Weayonnoh Nelson-Davies '07, Executive Director, Economic Progress Institute
2015
RWU Law establishes its Veterans Disability Appeals Field Clinic in the Providence offices of Chisholm & Chisholm, one of the nation's leading veterans disability law firms.
RWU Law Distinguished Jurist in Residence Judge Judith Colenback Savage hosts a major symposium on Mass Incarceration at the school that helps lead to significant changes in Rhode Island law.
2016
RWU Law opens new Experiential Learning Campus at One Empire Street in downtown Providence, housing in-house clinics, hosting classes, and providing a base for students performing externships and gaining other work in the city.
2017
Luis Mancheno ’13 makes national headlines when he leads a team of young attorneys in bringing the case of Darweesh v Trump Order less than 24 hours after President Trump signed his “Muslim ban”. In response, a federal judge blocks part of the executive order, ordering that refugees trapped at airports across the U.S. should not be sent back to their home countries.
The Professor Anthony J. Santoro Classroom (Room 262) is dedicated in honor of the founding Dean of RWU Law and President Emeritus of RWU. Santoro thanked the gathered faculty, alumni and students for the honor, noting that RWU Law was “instrumental in my having the best time of my life during these last 25 years – especially the last few as a faculty member. I really enjoyed that classroom and I am so thrilled to have it named after me.”
2018
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States makes national headlines when she skips President Donald Trump's State of the Union address to spend a snowy day at RWU Law.
The Honorable Edward C. Clifton, retired associate justice of the Rhode Island Superior Court, completes his term as Distinguished Jurist in Residence at RWU Law, a post he’d held since 2015. In 2018, Judge Clifton received the school’s Champions for Justice Award. He served on RWU Law’s Board of Directors from 2009 until 2020, and received an honorary degree from the school in 2021.
2019
A team of RWU Law librarians and staff, aided by members of the state bar and judiciary, builds a definitive list of the 176 First Women Lawyers in Rhode Island. In April, the law school hosts a gala event for the plaque dedication.
In September, the Dorothy R. Crockett Classroom is dedicated in honor of Rhode Island’s first African-American woman lawyer, admitted to the bar in 1932.
In November, cybersecurity lawyer Linn Foster Freedman, a longtime RWU Law board member, noted philanthropist, and law partner at Robinson & Cole LLP, is honored with a seminar room in her name.