Alan J. Borsuk – Page 18 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Trying to Strike Some Optimistic Notes Amid the COVID-19 Crisis

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:May 21, 2020
Post category:Health Care Milwaukee Public Speakers at Marquette

Can you offer a note of optimism when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Mike Gousha, Marquette Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy, asked Jeanette Kowalik, the health commissioner of the City of Milwaukee, that question at the end of an online “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” interview on Wednesday, May 20.

Kowalik tried, but it was a challenge to put a cheerful face on the impact the virus is having on Milwaukee and most of the world.

“Definitely what’s happening right now is like Haley’s comet,“ she said. It was hard to anticipate “something at this level” as a health crisis, she said, saying the United States as a whole was experiencing “these astronomical numbers” of confirmed cases and deaths.

The only option now is to continue social and physical distancing and use personal protective equipment such as face masks, Kowalik said, while awaiting development and widespread use of a vaccine to deal with the virus.

Latest Marquette Lawyer Magazine Offers Thoughts on Navigating Careers in the Law

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:December 23, 2019
Post category:Public

Marquette Lawyer Fall Cover Navigating your path as a lawyer—the new Marquette Lawyer magazine offers approaches to how you might do that.

The cover story, “Practicing Business Law at the Speed of Change,” includes insights from more than 15 lawyers whose work—together with that of their clients—is being shaped every day by advances in technology. Leaders of major firms, experts in the field, and lawyers at various stages in their careers describe how developments from the daily technology everyone uses (such as e-mail) to the most high-tech of today’s changes (blockchain, for example) are affecting legal practice. Click here to read the story.

Paired with the cover story is a profile of Ray Manista, L’90, whose titles at Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual include executive vice president – chief legal officer. Manista describes how “changing labels” has been a key to his successful career. He was a litigator at a large Milwaukee firm but “changed labels” to become a member of the legal team at Northwestern Mutual. Several years later, he changed labels again to become involved in corporate leadership. “To be truly effective, I had to lose the labels,” Manista says. To read his story, click here.

Lee H. Rosenthal, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, chose a thought-provoking subject about career paths when she delivered the E. Harold Hallows Lecture at Marquette Law School this past spring. “Ambition and Aspiration: Living Greatly in the Law” offers an essay version of her lecture on what priorities should guide members of the profession. Rosenthal’s remarks are accompanied in the magazine by responses from eight lawyers, judges, and professors: namely, Diane S. Sykes, Darren Bush, Suzanna Sherry, Chad M. Oldfather, Nancy Joseph, Anna Fodor, Anne Berleman Kearney, and Peter K. Rofes. To read the full story, click here.

Fresh Thoughts on How to Close the Pre-Kindergarten Learning Gap

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:December 9, 2019
Post category:Lubar Center Milwaukee Milwaukee Area Project Public Speakers at Marquette

(This is a lightly-edited version of a column I wrote for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that ran in the Dec. 8, 2019, print edition.)

Dana Suskind is a surgeon at the University of Chicago whose specialty is providing kids who have little or no hearing with high-tech cochlear implants that allow them to hear much better. But she noticed about a decade ago that some of her young patients had much better outcomes than others after receiving the implants.

“It was a really painful experience to watch” kids who now could hear but weren’t thriving. She worked to find the reason. Her conclusion: The problem “had less to do with their hearing loss and more to do with the environment into which they were born.” Generally, their lives were shaped by poverty, instability, high stress and limited exposure to experiences that are intellectually and emotionally beneficial.

Much the same is true for millions of children who are born with normal hearing. By the time they reach kindergarten, they are nowhere near as ready for school as children who with better lots in their early years.

Suskind became founder and co-director of a project called Thirty Million Words. The name came from a study from several decades ago that concluded that, by the time they reached school age, low-income children had heard 30 million fewer words in every-day conversation than children from higher income homes. This limited their educational readiness.