By John Leschak
The Honorable Elaine Jackson Stack joined the faculty of the University’s Law School last week as the director of the family law LL.M. program.
Stack spent the last eight years as a justice in the matrimonial division of the Nassau County Supreme Court. Prior to that, she served as a District Court Judge, as administrator for the Assigned Counsel Defender Plan in Nassau County and as deputy bureau chief in the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office Rackets Bureau.
The Family Law LL.M. program will be especially helpful to students who might want to teach family law or who want to affect legal policy, Stack said. “The program has a concentration in policy analysis and writing,” she added.
The program is not only open to students. According to Stack, several lawyers have entered the program as well.
“The LL.M. program is good for people who are already lawyers, but who want to change their field of practice. For instance, because of the decline in the residential real estate market, lawyers practicing real estate law might want to change,” she said.
Being a judge is a wonderful profession, Stack said. “In New York, almost all judges are elected, and once you are elected it is a big responsibility because you have a huge impact on the lives of other people, particularly children, and you can make a positive difference in their lives.”
While Stack was still a justice in Nassau’s Matrimonial Court, she was also an adjunct professor at the law school. As an adjunct, she ran the matrimonial externship, a program that she developed herself. Students in the externship spend half the semester in the chambers of a judge and the other half of the semester in the office of a lawyer practicing matrimonial law.
Stack said she will continue to run the externship, in addition to directing the LL.M. program. She will also teach a class in matrimonial litigation.
The Family Law LL.M. program, established in 2006, offers students the opportunity to engage in specialized study in advanced family law. Stack said she plans on doing active recruiting for the LL.M. program, including overseas recruitment. “We have already seen some interest from students in foreign countries who want to learn about how family law works here,” she said.
Stack said she is also planning on starting a scholarship program and an online distance learning program for the program as well.