Three Pitt Law Students Named Inaugural Nordenberg Fellows

Three second-year Pitt School of Law students—J. Katherine Drabecki, Claudia Garman, and David Willey—are the recipients of the inaugural Nordenberg Fellowships, funded by Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg University Chair Alberta Sbragia, the first recipient of the professorship. The Nordenberg Fellows will study in Europe this summer.

“My fervent desire is to involve our students further in international studies and increase their passion for knowledge of the world,” said Sbragia, Pitt professor of political science and director of Pitt’s European Union (EU) Center of Excellence and European Studies Center. “I am delighted that these three outstanding law students will gain what I had hoped for—a deeper knowledge of Europe, which will help them in their future careers.”

Drabecki will intern at the Institute for European Studies in Brussels; Garman will work in the Human Rights Division of the German Federal Foreign Office in Berlin; and Willey will conduct research at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg.

“The connections with the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg and the Institute for European Studies in Brussels as well as placement with the German Foreign Ministry present opportunities for our students that simply do not exist at other U.S. law schools,” said Ronald Brand, Pitt professor of law and director of the law school’s Center for International Legal Education (CILE). “We very much appreciate the support of Dr. Sbragia through the Nordenberg Professorship that has made this initiative possible.”

The Nordenberg Fellowships, awarded through CILE in cooperation with the EU Center of Excellence, will fulfill Sbragia’s wish. Each Nordenberg Fellow will receive $5,000 to support his or her internship.

Drabecki has served as president of the Pitt Law Women’s Society and as a legal analysis and writing teaching assistant. She was a member of the Pitt team that competed at the 2007 William C. Vis International Moot Court Competition in Vienna. During the summer of 2006, she interned with the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo in the Legal Policy Division. She is the recipient of a 2007-08 Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship, which she will use to study Polish in conjunction with her legal studies.

Garman has received the Truxall Fund Scholarship and a Nationality Room Scholarship while at the School of Law. In 2006, Garman spent the summer as an intern at the European Roma Rights Center in Budapest. She has served as vice president of the International Law Society at the Pitt School of Law and is an associate editor of the Journal of Law and Commerce.

Willey has studied at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the Federal Armed Forces Academy in Munich. In summer 2006, he interned in the chambers of Judge John A. Zottola in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. Willey was a member of the School of Law’s 2007 Niagara International Moot Court team.