Our Firm is happy to have two Fordham Law students on board this summer. Please join us in welcoming Rafita Ahlam and Kacie Candela!
Rafita Ahlam is a rising 3L at Fordham Law. She is currently the Writing and Research Editor for Volume 44 of the International Law Journal, where she works with students interested in publishing their notes. Additionally, she’s a member of Fordham’s Moot Court Board and the Board of Student Advisors. Rafita’s interest in employment and labor law arose from participating in discussions about Title VII in her classes and from competing in a Moot Court competition centered on an age discrimination claim under ADEA.Prior to joining Berke-Weiss Law, Rafita interned as an Immigration Intern with the International Rescue Committee and as a Fair Hearings Intern with the NYC Department of Social Services. Before law school, she worked for two years as a paralegal at a plaintiff’s side personal injury firm. She graduated from SUNY Binghamton in 2016 with a Bachelor’s in Political Science. In her spare time, Rafita enjoys weight-lifting, traveling, and NYC’s restaurant scene.
Kacie is a rising 2L at Fordham University School of Law, where she is the Employment Discrimination Chair of the Workers' Rights Advocates. Prior to law school, she covered New York City and State politics for NPR-affiliate radio station WFUV, where she produced and co-hosted the Prickly Politics podcast. Over three seasons, Prickly Politics took an in-depth look at local elections as well as workplace sexual harassment in the NYS Legislature and activist efforts to change the state's sexual harassment and discrimination law.Kacie is also a writer and podcast producer for the news site PassBlue.com, which covers the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. She produces UN-Scripted, a podcast that aims to make the UN comprehensible to the English-speaking global public and humanize the diplomats who serve there.Kacie is a proud alumna of the Fordham College of Rose Hill Honors Program, where she studied English and International Political Economy. She serves as a board member on the Fordham College Alumni Association. Kacie enjoys cycling, hiking, yoga and reading. She is an avid listener of WNYC and reader of the Atlantic Magazine.
The pandemic may be creating a path for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which was first introduced in 2012 to become law. This law will help clarify and define the rights of women to receive accommodations in the workplace.
As New Yorkers follow the sexual harassment allegations against Governor Cuomo with interest, the New York Law Journal explores “What’s Next for the Investigation Into Sexual Harassment Claims Against Cuomo.”
As the pandemic has thrown millions into unemployment, has affected women disproportionately, and laid bare just how much working people rely on myriad forms domestic care, others are, as this wide-ranging profile in the New York Times magazine suggests, rediscovering the socialist feminism of Federici and her contemporaries, such as Selma James, Angela Davis, and the Combahee River Collective.
