Renwei Uncategorized

Balancing The Three-Legged Stool Of Success In Our Legal Careers

“We are the rose, this is the concrete, and these are my damaged petals. Don’t ask me why. Thank God and ask me how.” — Tupac

Last week, I attebalancing stoolnded a diversity and inclusion event that featured Caren K. Lock, Regional Vice President and Associate General Counsel of Government Relations & Public Policy for TIAA-CREF. Prior to joining TIAA-CREF, Lock was General Counsel with a consumer financial company in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Lock is currently the primary interface for her company on all legislative, executive, and regulatory matters in the southwest region. Lock is a frequent speaker on racial and gender diversity as well as community and political advocacy.

As the keynote speaker, Lock gave advice on how law school graduates can attain and maintain success in their lives and throughout their careers. As an Asian-American woman, Lock highlighted some of the critical experiences she has had and key decisions she has made throughout her career. She shared her life-balance philosophy, which she categorized into three major roles. Lock compared our ability to manage these roles to the balancing of a three-legged stool.

According to Lock, the three main roles we all play in life are… Continue Reading

Renwei Uncategorized

Supreme Court To Decide On ADA and Fourth Amendment Issues In Police Shootings

“We been hurt, been down before / when our pride was low / looking at the world like, where do we go?” — Kendrick Lamar

According to the Portland Press Herald in Maine, “nationally about half of the estimated 375 to 500 people shot and killed by police each year are mentally ill. In many cases, the officers knew from the start that the subjects were unstable.” There remains no national standard for crisis intervention of the mentally ill.police

Across the country, U.S. Justice Department investigations have concluded that officers have systematically used unconstitutional force, or engaged in a pattern of using excessive force, against the mentally ill. Unnecessary force by officers has led to deaths in many instances. Last month, 111 people died during police encounters. Those who lost their lives were mostly people of color, mentally ill, or both.

Last year, the ACLU of Michigan posted a video of the fatal shooting of 49-year-old Milton Hall. As noted in Newsweek:

In the video, Hall, 49, is seen standing in a Saginaw, Michigan, parking lot surrounded by eight police officers with their guns drawn and pointed at him. During the short stand-off, a police dog began to growl and lunge toward Hall, who took out a small pocketknife in response. It was when he turned to the dog, the ACLU says, that police showered Hall with a stream of bullets.

The officers fired 46 shots in a matter of seconds, hitting Hall 14 times. Once on the ground, an officer turned him over, handcuffed him, and put his foot on Hall’s back—with “his blood running down the street like water,” Jewel Hall, Milton’s mother, told the ACLU.

Continue Reading…

Renwei Diversity

Mateen Cleaves, A Kid From Flint

Behind every triumph and heartbreak in the NCAA tournament, there’s a story. The Players’ Tribune presents Tales of Madness, a series of first-person accounts from iconic basketball players recalling their most memorable tournament experiences. In this installment, Mateen Cleaves remembers the National Championship Game against Florida in 2000, and how a team of seniors was shaped by a young coach named Tom Izzo.

*MSU v Florida Cleaves

I was just trying to find Coach Izzo.

On the court, it was madness. Lights flashing and music blasting. Cameras were everywhere. “One Shining Moment” was just starting to play on the Jumbotron. Someone handed me a brand new white hat that read: Michigan State 2000 National Champions. I was trying to hold back tears. I needed to find Coach Izzo.

Weaving through the crowd, I found him. We shared a big bear hug. Together, we looked up and watched “One Shining Moment.” It was very emotional for me. I tell people all the time — that was the first time in my life I cried tears of joy. That was just a magical moment. Something I will never forget.

To understand the type of emotion I was feeling in that moment, you have to go back to the living room of my parents’ house at 512 Gray St. in Flint, Michigan. I was an 18-year-old kid sitting at the dinner table with a young coach with a funny name. Coach Izzo had come to recruit me. He was a first-year coach with the confidence of a veteran.

He looked right at me and my parents, and said, “If you come to Michigan State, we’ll win a national championship by the time you leave.”

Hold up. That sounded good and all, but I didn’t know how true that could be. This was the same year the Spartans had just finished sixth in the Big Ten and lost in the second round of the NIT. You know, at the time Michigan State wasn’t getting McDonald’s All-Americans every year. The ‘90s had been the University of Michigan’s basketball decade. Now this first-year coach was in my house guaranteeing a national championship?

But that’s the thing about Coach Izzo — there’s something about him that makes you want to be part of what he’s doing. Going to MSU to play for him turned out to be one of the best decisions in my life.

Every player who’s ever played for Coach Izzo knows that he cares about them. You might see him getting into a guy’s face or challenging a player, but there’s a lot that people don’t see. Throughout the course my career, I probably sat in his office a hundred times talking about how my mom and dad were doing, how are classes were going, how life was going — even joking or talking about TV shows … things that have nothing to do with basketball. He did that with everyone. He made the effort to know you as an individual. He cared about us as people, not just basketball players.

And I think that’s why his players would go out and run through a brick wall for him.

Continue Reading on The Players Tribune…