THE Docket

Kyu Young (Mike) Paek ’08, confirmed as a United States bankruptcy judge for the Southern District of New York in July 2024, first discovered his passion for bankruptcy law as a Fordham Law student. Interning for bankruptcy judge Arthur Gonzalez ’82 during the summer between his first and second year, he had the opportunity to work on two of the biggest bankruptcy cases in history, Enron and WorldCom.

When Paek returned to Fordham in the fall, he took every bankruptcy course he could, including one taught by Professor Susan Block-Lieb. “She taught a Chapter 11 course which really got me excited about pursuing a career in bankruptcy,” says Paek.

Paek went on to practice as a bankruptcy attorney at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP and then served as a law clerk to Judge James M. Peck and Judge Stuart M. Bernstein. He was the lead law clerk on another high-profile legal case, the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, before serving as the chief deputy clerk of court for the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

“Being a judicial intern and a law clerk really crystallized for me that I really just want to get to the most fair and correct answer, as opposed to being a zealous advocate for a client,” says Paek. “So I thought, what better way to pursue that passion than to be a judge?”

French native Aude Sainte-Rose, LL.M. ’22 had a front row seat at the historic Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics. As project manager for legal and artistic coordination, she closely collaborated with choreographers, musicians, and costume designers for the four opening and closing ceremonies, ensuring that their creative visions “were not only breathtaking but legally protected.”

“When you’re a lawyer, you have to adapt very quickly—sometimes, right up until the very final moment—in order to secure clearances to use a character, a song, whatever is being requested,” Sainte-Rose explains. “For example, Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) and comic character Fantômes were supposed to be in the Olympics Opening Ceremony, but because they’re copyrighted characters we couldn’t secure the necessary permissions in time.”

Despite the stress leading up to each ceremony, Sainte-Rose says her favorite moment actually had nothing to do with her legal expertise. “To be asked to be a part of the Olympics Opening Ceremony as an extra was unexpected and the most fun part of my work,” she says. Dressed in a head-to-toe pink costume, she joined dozens of other performers along the River Seine as a masked figure vaulted through the city with the Olympic torch.

Sainte-Rose plans to take the French bar exam in April and says she looks forward to remaining in the entertainment space. “Creativity played a key in my role as a lawyer, because I was at the very heart of creating the shows. I would love to stay very close to artists in my next role.”

Eileen McCarthy ’93 worked at JetBlue for 15 years before leaving in 2021 when the airline industry experienced a global downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She returned to the airline in 2024 in a new leadership role as general counsel and corporate secretary.

What brought her back? “JetBlue has a culture that is unusual. It’s unique, in a good way,” says McCarthy, pointing to a long-standing values-driven company culture and a new leadership team.

In her new role at JetBlue—which boasts 22,000 employees and serves more than 40 million customers annually—McCarthy oversees legal ethics, compliance, and sustainability efforts, while also managing the corporation’s relationship with its board of directors.

While at Fordham, McCarthy was the editor-in-chief of the Fordham International Law Journal and went on to clerk for Judge K. Michael Moore of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. She later became a partner in the corporate transactions and securities group of a national law firm and served as the senior vice president and deputy general counsel of an AI software company.

McCarthy saw JetBlue through its early days, just a few years after the company went public in 2002. She says she’s thrilled to be back helming its legal team during a time of record-breaking demand for airline travel. “It’s a really exciting time to be there,” says McCarthy. “I’m hoping that we’re going to do great things.”

After Warner Records A&R executive Sean Stevens reached out to Swims’ manager, Luke Conway, Kamen sent a deal proposal to Petty—the executive vice president and head of business and legal affairs at Warner Records. The two worked fast to hammer out a deal in December 2019 while the music industry was essentially shut down for the holidays. “This thing was hot and heavy,” Petty recalls.

Now that Swims is so wildly successful, “Our job is to add gas to all of that fire,” Petty says. But that’s only part of the vision: “We see Teddy as a pillar of Warner Records. We see a very long-term relationship.”

What started as a group chat among Fordham Law alumnae navigating the challenges women face in the legal profession has grown into a vibrant networking community of over 150 women lawyers from more than 35 cities and 10 countries.

Milana Dostanitch ’14, senior of counsel at Lipsky Lowe LLP, and Katerina Housos, LL.M. ’14, CEO and general counsel of United Steps Therapy, formally launched Inspiring Women in Law League (IWILL) in September 2023 along with fellow co-founder Kalpana Nagampalli, an experienced IP and complex commercial litigator and partner at KI Legal. They describe it as the first organization of its kind to provide career development resources, mental health and wellness support, and business growth and financial education resources for women in the law and their allies. Most members are also first-generation lawyers or come from historically underprivileged backgrounds.

“I had amazing friends who were lawyers, and we all started facing similar things that I think women in law face,” says Dostanitch, pointing to a need for career support, pay equity issues, and lack of career fulfillment.

The organization has emerged as a hub for women in the legal profession, providing career development resources and presenting up to three online events per month. IWILL also hosts a monthly in-person event in New York City, with past outings ranging from social gatherings and art- and music-focused experiences to training sessions and networking opportunities for members. In 2025, IWILL is expanding its offerings by launching a Mental Health Corner and a new book project co-authored by members.

“The DNA of the group, of course, started with our friendship and our unwavering support for each other, and it continues to be the culture and spirit of IWILL,” says Dostanitch. “The fact is that most things are better when we believe in each other and do them together. We can all succeed together.”

If someone is in the grips of a mental health emergency, a 911 call typically results in a police response. But according to a 2023 report from the Brookings Institution, individuals with mental illness are more likely to be killed or hurt during police encounters, an injustice made worse by significant racial disparities.

Derick D. Dailey ’17 wants to change that paradigm.

As a counsel at the law firm Crowell & Moring in New York City, Dailey has been working to broaden the reach of the ARRIVE Together program, a project he helped launch during his two years working in the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. The pioneering program pairs law enforcement officials with mental health professionals who take the lead in responding to 911 calls involving behavioral and mental health emergencies.

Dailey is also striving to expand ARRIVE Together to more states as a participant in the Obama Foundation USA Leaders program. This selective six-month program brings together 100 U.S. leaders between the ages of 24 and 45 from various fields—including business, law, nonprofits, and health care—unified by their ambition to create lasting social impact. “Through coaching, professional development, and networking, we’re given an opportunity to think strategically about our projects and the issues that we care about,” Dailey says. “It’s a pretty intense experience.”

Dailey is up for the challenge because, he says, ARRIVE Together and alternative crisis programs are ideas long overdue: “Since we launched the program in 2021, there have been over 6,400 interactions, and none have resulted in death or injury, and there have been no arrests. That’s because, for the first time, people who need mental health care the most are actually getting it.”

Michel Paradis ’04, a leading human rights lawyer and national security expert, set out to write his latest book on the unlikely rise to power of a figure whom he argues is underrecognized in American history: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“It seemed that everyone was writing books about Churchill and Patton and all these other hyper-charismatic figures … but no one was paying a lot of attention to Dwight Eisenhower,” says Paradis.

His new book, The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower, corrects that by offering a biographical account of the former general and president in the year leading up to D-Day, based on Paradis’ meticulous historical research.

“Here you have someone who literally grows up in about as remote a place in America as you could possibly imagine, Abilene, Kansas, as the dirt-poor middle child of a large family of religious pacifists,” says Paradis. “I wanted to understand how it was that someone with that background lives the American dream and goes from the middle of nowhere to the absolute pinnacle of world power.”

In addition to his historical writing—Paradis is also the author of Last Mission to Tokyo: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight for Justice—he is a partner at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, where he specializes in international law and technology. After graduating from Fordham, he got his doctorate from Oxford in computational linguistics, and has taught at Georgetown University Law Center and Columbia Law School.

There were thousands of unsolved homicides in Queens County in 2024—with some dating as far back as 1970. As the new and only assistant district attorney in the Cold Case Unit of the Queens District Attorney’s Office, Alyssa Mendoza ’17 has been focused on solving the borough’s oldest and most challenging cases and bringing justice to families.

“We’re getting cases pitched from the New York City Police Department and families calling us, trying to get us to relook at a case,” Mendoza says. “We may have a known suspect that we’re trying to get more evidence on, or we may not even know who the suspect is. Sometimes we don’t even know who the victim is, and we have to send out the DNA of unidentified human remains. It’s truly starting at ground zero.”

Although the unit is relatively new, she says her team is beginning to make inroads. “We had four indictments in 2024, which I know doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is. And that doesn’t include the 16 other cases I was investigating at a time or the multiple known suspects that we had in other cases.”

Mendoza says one of her proudest moments was securing a conviction in a 14-year-old case involving the violent murder of a transgender sex worker. “Being able to close that chapter for the family of [victim] Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar—because she was so brutally murdered—and being able to bring attention to transgender rights and sex workers’ rights was really important to me.”