Legal News

Loyola Law School gets grant for Center for the Study of Law & Genocide

By Jason Siegel

Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, has received $350,000 toward the establishment of its Center for the Study of Law & Genocide, which is anticipated to launch next year.

The Armenian General Benevolent Union, an Armenian charitable organization, made the donation after receiving funds from two settlements against insurance firms for unpaid claims on behalf of the descendents of victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide. New York Life Insurance Co. agreed in 2004 to settle claims for $20 million. AXA, a French insurance firm, settled one year later for $17 million.

Two lawyers who spearheaded that litigation, Mark Geragos, principal of Los Angeles-based Geragos & Geragos, and Brian S. Kabateck, a partner at Los Angeles-based Kabateck Brown Kellner, are alumni of Loyola Law School and Armenian Americans.

Geragos, Kabateck and two other attorneys, Berj Boyajian, of Boyajian & Associates in Los Angeles, and Vartkes Yeghiayan, a sole practitioner in Glendale, Calif., gave $100,000 from the settlement fund to establish the Center for the Study of Law & Genocide. Another $350,000 was raised, bringing the total amount of charitable giving to $800,000.

The center is expected to focus on legal remedies for victims of genocide and mass violations of human rights. It will have symposia, a genocide law class, internships, a law clinic and an academic chairperson on genocide law and policy.

-- Amanda Bronstad

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on July 24, 2008 (boomark / email).