Law Alumni Association leadership.
UB Law Alumni Association extends its support in perpetuity
For many decades, the UB Law Alumni Association and the law school have had a symbiotic relationship. The law school provides administrative support for the group’s programming, and association members contribute their time, energy, new ideas and good counsel to further the school’s mission. In addition, the Association has been very generous with their more tangible resources over the years, providing critical financial support for the law school’s initiatives.
This year, under the leadership of 2023-24 LAA president, Michael J. Hecker ’09, the Association made some significant moves to ensure its financial support will continue in perpetuity. “I engaged my executive committee and board to make sure we put our money to work,” says Hecker. As a result of those focused efforts, the Association:
- Established a $250,000 endowment to support its annual tuition scholarships for law students, which, thanks to the SUNY Match program, also received a fifty percent match. This fund will generate income for the UB Law Alumni Association Scholarship—a $5,000 award to a scholarship recipient in all three years of law school.
- Created a $100,000 endowment to support the GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Group’s scholarship. The GOLD Group, an arm of the Law Alumni Association, provides this award each year to an incoming 1L for all three years of law school.
- Added to its ongoing support of its endowed Social Justice and Racial Equity Fund, which provides a summer fellowship for eligible law students.
Michael J. Hecker ’09
Recognizing that student support at the end of law school is as important as it is at the beginning, the Association has also made a substantial donation to the law school’s new Rally the Pass initiative, a comprehensive effort to ensure new graduates’ success on the New York State Bar Exam. “Our board was very interested in supporting that initiative,” Hecker says. The Association donated $10,000 in bar prep support and incentives to keep UB Law’s newest alumni focused on their bar prep.
“The Law Alumni Association has been a steady partner to the law school for many decades,” says Dean S. Todd Brown. “The Association’s generous contributions have enabled us to expand the level of student support we provide, contributing to significant improvements in our most recent placement and bar passage rates."
In addition to its financial support, the Association ran several well-attended CLE programs, a successful All-Class Reunion in October, held for the first time at Reikart House, an upscale hotel in Amherst. The event paid tribute to the outgoing executive director of the Association, Ilene Fleischmann, and welcomed her successor, Stephanie Mack ’08. And in January, a highly attended Edwin F. Jaeckle award luncheon honored Hon. Julio M. Fuentes ’75, senior U.S. circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals, on the cusp of his retirement.
“It’s difficult to express the amount of admiration I have for our alumni leadership,” says Stephanie Mack. “I am so very proud of all that they do for the law school. It’s truly a pleasure to work with such a passionate and caring alumni base.”
Robert C. Brucato ’90
Hecker’s successor as the Association’s president is Robert C. Brucato ’90, senior appellate counsel at Buffalo’s Counsel Press. Brucato has his sights set on continuing Hecker’s work and building on the Association’s nationwide network. “I look forward to reinvigorating our regional chapters and getting to know alumni from around the state and country,” Brucato says. “Now that Todd Brown has been appointed permanent dean, it’s an ideal opportunity to introduce him to alumni across the nation. There is excellent work being done at the law school, and I would like to continue that focus of boosting the alumni association’s support of those efforts.”
