FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 22, 2011 MEDIA CONTACT: Joy David, 518-929-5249/jdavid@albanylaw.

edu Senior Editor, Albany Government Law Review ASSEMBLYMEMBER DANNY ODONNELL, SENATOR JIM ALESI TO DISCUSS SAME-SEX MARRIAGE LAW AT LGBT SYMPOSIUM Panel Discussion at LGBT Rights: Toward a More Perfect Union, Hosted by Albany Government Law Review, Will Also Feature Assistant Counsel to Gov. Cuomo ALBANY, N.Y. Asssemblymember Daniel J. ODonnell, Senator James S. Alesi will be joined by Katherine Grainger, Assistant Counsel to Governor Andrew Cuomo, for an oral history of the same-sex marriage law at LGBT Rights: Toward a More Perfect Union, a daylong symposium hosted by Albany Government Law Review on October 13, 2011, at Albany Law School. The panel, moderated Professor Stephen Clark of Albany Law School, will take place at 5:30pm on October 13, in the schools Dean Alexander Moot Court Room. LGBT Rights: Toward a More Perfect Union will feature an impressive roster of speakers. The symposium will kick off with a keynote address by Jeh Johnson, General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Defense, the highest-ranking attorney for the largest government agency in the world. The event is co-sponsored by the Albany-based Pride Center of the Capital District, the oldest continuously operating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community center in the county. For more information about LGBT Rights: Toward a More Perfect Union, please visit: www.albanylaw.edu/lgbt. The first panel, focusing on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), will include litigators at the forefront of todays legal news and moderated by Ross Levi, Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda. Panelists Maura Healey, Chief of the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney Generals Office, and Roberta Kaplan, Partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, will argue the constitutionality of DOMA in pending court cases against the U.S. House of Representatives in the First Circuit and in the Southern District of New York, respectively. Brian Raum, Director of Marriage Litigation Center for the Alliance Defense Fund, will also participate on the panel. The second panel, on family and workplace rights, moderated by Albany Law professor Melissa Breger, will feature LGBT Liaison Matt Nosanchuk, Senior Counselor in the U.S. Department of Justice; Michele Kahn, Partner at Kahn & Goldberg; William Singer, Partner at Singer & Fedun; and Carol Buell, Partner at Weiss, Buell & Bell. ALBANY GOVERNMENT LAW REVIEW is a student-run, symposium-based journal that publishes articles on a variety of issues relating to government and public policy. The journal was cited by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in McDonald v. Chicago. The journal has published several prominent legal scholars, including: Louis Fisher, Sanford Levinson, Gideon Kanner, Richard Briffault, Normal Siegel, Ilya Somin, Steven J. Eagle, and Daniel Ortiz. Recent issues and symposia of our journal addressed legal topics on: Abraham Lincolns legacy in the

context of executive power; education reform; and eminent domain. The faculty advisors to ALBANY GOVERNMENT LAW REVIEW are Patricia Salkin, Associate Dean and Director of the nationally renowned Albany Government Law Center, and Paul Finkelman, William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy. For more information about the journal, please visit our website: www.albanygovernmentlawreview.org. Albany Law School, founded in 1851, is a small, independent private institution located in the heart of New York States capital. As the oldest law school in New York and the oldest independent law school in the nation, Albany Law School offers students an innovative, rigorous curriculum taught by a committed faculty. Several nationally recognized programsincluding the Government Law Center and the Albany Law Clinic & Justice Centerprovide opportunities for students to apply classroom learning. Students have access to New Yorks highest court, federal courts and the state legislature. With more than 9,000 alumni practicing in every state in the country, the employment rate for graduates has been well above the national average for law schools for more than twenty-five years. For more information about the law school, please visit www.albanylaw.edu.

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