"Used the law to attempt to right the injustices in our society" -Joel S

I got to know Vanessa in my capacity as Executive Director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) - a coalition of over 200 local unions, public health, legal professionals and rank and file activists dedicated to the fight for every worker’s right to safe and healthy workplaces - in the 1980’s when she was a professor at the CUNY Law School.

Unlike most academics, Vanessa was committed to using her position as a professor to ensure workers were able to exercise their rights and receive benefits to which they were entitled by actively participating in on-going struggles both in the courtroom by representing workers and in the legislature to change laws which adversely affected workers. For example, she organized her colleagues to join and participate in the Workers’ Compensation Committee of NYCOSH. Her participation, and those of her colleagues, heightened the level of discussion about the inadequacies of New York State’s Workers’ Compensation Law and the ways it operated to deprive injured workers of benefits to which they were entitled.

When then New York State Governor Pataki introduced legislation to overturn the precedent established in a case entitled Dole v Dow which allowed the third party to implead the employer and apportion the liability between the parties, Vanessa, with her colleagues, prepared an amicus brief to protect the interest of injured workers – a brief which was submitted to and accepted by the Court.

Vanessa continued to work in the field of occupational safety and health after moving to Pace University Law School. She organized the first commemoration of Workers’ Memorial Day to be held at the school. She has remained an active member of the Lower Hudson Occupational Environmental Health Clinic Advisory Board.

I believe it was through her work with injured workers that Vanessa came in contact with immigrant workers who were often unrepresented. It was through her work that she has become one of the leading activist lawyers in defending immigrant workers and fighting for their rights. Vanessa has consistently throughout her career demonstrated her concern for those most vulnerable: the injured, disabled, undocumented. Through her dedication, commitment and hard work she has used the law to attempt to right the injustices in our society and inspire her students to fight for social justice.

Joel S