Jason Albright (JD’04) has been accepted into the PhD program at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. During his first semester, Jason will be working as both a teaching and research assistant.  Already a graduate of Cornell’s one-year Master’s program in Industrial and Labor Relations, Jason’s PhD concentration will likely be International and Comparative Labor.

After completing his Masters degree in 2005, Jason worked as a researcher for the health and human service workers’ union 1199 SEIU, a large and established Manhattan-based local union that is currently involved in a number of ambitious and successful drives.  “I was specifically involved in doing preparatory market and regulatory research for a drive to organize health care workers and nurses in the Baltimore area, and in providing research support for a more embroiled struggle to organize a group of hospitals in and about Boston.”

Originally from Morgantown, West Virginia, Jason graduated in 1999 from Swarthmore College with a BA in English Literature (honors program) and a minor in History. Upon admission to Swarthmore, Jason was awarded a full-tuition Eugene M. Lang Scholarship (so named after its philanthropic sponsor, a graduate of the Swarthmore class of 1938) to help advance learning through community service.  “Swarthmore had identified me from the applicant pool as an admitted student likely to contribute to the service community at the College, probably because of my activities during high school working at a free clinic and for a local HIV/AIDS resource network in West Virginia.”  The scholarship provided Jason with support and funding for service that he ultimately used to develop two internship projects at not-for-profit organizations.  “My first project, in the summer of 1997, involved work to help evaluate a summer enrichment camp for Appalachian young people hosted by The Mountain Institute, an organization dedicated to advancing peoples and cultures inhabiting several major mountainous regions throughout the world.”  Jason’s second project, in the summer of 1998, involved gathering, indexing and archiving the major historical documents of the Philadelphia-based Painted Bride Art Center, in conjunction with its retiring founder, Gerry Givnish.

In 2001, Jason was awarded a full-tuition Dean’s scholarship; this time to U.M. Law School.  Jason also received a H.O.P.E. scholarship for pro bono work at U.M., which enabled him to spend the summer of 2003 between Miami and Philadelphia working on legal issues affecting people living with HIV/AIDS.  “I spent the first half of my summer at Legal Services of Greater Miami and the second half of my summer at Philadelphia’s AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, where I produced a pamphlet on the interaction of Federal H.I.P.A.A. and Pennsylvania privacy provisions vis-à-vis persons living with HIV.”

While a law student, Jason twice received the UM CALI Award (Legal Research and Writing, fall 2001; History of Private Law in Europe, spring 2003).  The CALI Excellence for the Future Award recognizes exceptional academic performance and recognizes students who have exhibited excellence in class performance, attendance and in their final grade.

In addition to his scholastic achievements, Jason was involved with UM law organizations. He served as president of Stonewall Legal Alliance, which later became OutLaw, in which capacity he served as a representative to the Inter-Club Council.  “During the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, I worked with a group of colleagues on building a coalition that we called Advocates for Legal Force (ALF), in opposition to the invasion.”  Subsequently, Jason worked in conjunction with a social-justice-oriented campus group called the Society for Peace and Justice.  “My peers and I were actually on hand during the November 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial conference and labor/activist demonstrations in downtown Miami as legal observers for the National Lawyers’ Guild.”

At UM, Jason enjoyed Professor Bradley’s Business Associations course; Professor Levi’s Communications Law Course; Professor Fernandez-Barros’s Roman Law and Civil Law Tradition courses; Professor Froomkin’s Administrative Law and Trademark courses; and Professor Diamond’s Torts and U.S. and E.U. Food Law courses.  “Professor Diamond’s courses were certainly my favorite and the most challenging.  Diamond’s courses made me understand concretely how richly allegorical, metaphoric and practical law is, all at once.” Jason also benefited from the guidance of Professor Caroline Bradley in developing a research paper comparing German codetermination practices with the various opportunities for labor involvement in corporate governance in U.S. corporations.  “Although my future work is unlikely to involve these specific substantive matters, the research tools and perspective this work helped me to hone were extremely valuable.”

As for the future, Jason is excited about the possibility of being able to develop his own original research free of significant influence or constraint, and being able to continue a life of learning, teaching and service.