Law Alumna Runs Marathon for One who Keeps Her On Track

Berman running in the Heels & Wheels 5K
in Larchmont on Sunday, Oct. 25
Photo by Dana Maxson

When Jessica Berman, LAW ’02, takes her first step across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on this Sunday, Nov. 2, it will be the second time she’s embarked on the 26.2-mile New York City marathon.

But it will be the first time she’s running the race for two.

Berman, a Larchmont resident, is running as part of a 13-member “Run 4 Brad” team that has so far raised $70,000 for the creation of a lower limb robotics program at Burke Rehabilitation Center in White Plains, NY. 

The money is being raised in honor of her husband Brad, 37, who suffered a massive stroke last August that left him comatose for weeks and unable to walk for several months.

Berman is spearheading the drive both to help fund the robotics program and to spread the word about staying fit—a major factor in Brad’s recovery from AVM (arteriovenous malformation), a congenital malformation of blood vessels that led to his stroke. 

The fact that her husband had previously run several marathons made a big difference toward his success in relearning how to breathe, walk, and talk, said Berman.

“If, God forbid, anything like this ever happens, you want your body to be in the best position to be able to recover, and the [doctors] felt Brad had done that,” said Berman, who is vice president and deputy general counsel for the National Hockey League (NHL).

“No matter what, it’s one foot after another. The running analogy has gotten us through this in a very real way, because that’s what you do as a runner.”

Andrew, Brad, Jessica and Noah Berman
Photo by Dana Maxson

Running brought the couple together when they were first dating. It also provided an outlet for Berman when the stress of Brad’s hospitalization overwhelmed her. 

While he lay in a coma for five weeks, she ducked out of the hospital and ran as long as she could before tiring, a coping practice that earned her the nickname “Forest Gump” from the hospital staff. 

In a way, she began her marathon training then.

“I love the values that running can teach you. It’s a goal-oriented individual sport that truly tests your will and your strength,” she said. 

Raising funds and training for the race, which she hopes to finish in less than four hours, has added to an already full plate for Berman, who also has two sons. She thrives on activity though: At Fordham Law School she organized the annual sports law forum, and was hired upon graduation by the firm Proskauer Rose LLP, which represented the NHL. 

The NHL hired her in 2006. It was a dream job for Berman—a longtime hockey fan who managed the men’s hockey team while a student at the University of Michigan. In January 2013, she helped the league broker a 10-year labor agreement with the NHL player’s association. 

“We have the benefit of being leanly staffed, so in addition to being really busy I get to work on things that I wouldn’t have the chance to work on at other organizations —and certainly not other sports leagues, in terms of the responsibility,” she said. “Most of my friends who work in-house are in departments where workloads are assigned by subject matter. You’re in a litigation group or a labor group or a corporate group, and you just do that.”

She holds firm to the idea that the busier you are, the more efficient you are; she said she has no plans to slow down until Brad is back on his feet and the family has returned to a degree of normalcy. 

Returning to the NYC marathon is poignant for Berman. The first time, in 2004, she said she had to convince Brad to run it with her. 

Ironically, however, he ended up enjoying it more than she did. He continued to run full marathons, while she stepped-down to running half-marathons.

 “When we did the marathon 10 years ago, Brad got me through the race. Brad has always been my rock, the person who keeps me on track,” she said.

“After we finished, he said, ‘That was awesome, I loved it, I’m doing it again.’ I was like, ‘I hated that, I’m never doing it again.’ So the runner in Brad was born, and I was retired. 

“Now I’m back.”

—Patrick Verel

Editor's Note: Berman finished the marathon in 3:44 and raised $25,000. As of November 3, Team Run 4 Brad has raised $88,000.

Faculty Reads: Charting Hegel’s Philosophy

German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) is one of the discipline’s most influential thinkers. Unfortunately, his comprehensive, systematic philosophy is so complex that some contemporary philosophers never fully grasp it.

Thankfully, Fordham professor Michael Baur, Ph.D. has helped to make Hegel’s worldview more accessible. G.W.F. Hegel: Key Concepts (Routledge, 2014), which Baur edited, provides an introduction to both Hegel’s thought and the later philosophical movements that Hegel inspired.

“Hegel was a very comprehensive and systematic thinker, [so] in order to grasp the full meaning of any particular part within Hegel’s system, it is necessary to appreciate the context of the whole,” writes Baur, an associate professor of philosophy and adjunct professor at Fordham Law.

“[In addition,] Hegel developed his innovative and systematic philosophy in continuous dialogue with his own contemporaries. Thus, in order to understand Hegel, it is necessary also to understand the historical context within which, and in response to which, Hegel was developing his own philosophical views.”

The book is divided into two parts. First, it covers the main philosophical themes Hegel addresses, namely, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, ethical theory, political philosophy, philosophy of nature, philosophy of art, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of history.

The second section deals with post-Hegelian movements in philosophy, including Marxism, existentialism, pragmatism, analytic philosophy, hermeneutics, and French post-structuralism.

G.W.F. Hegel his the shelves this week. Click here to read the publisher's synopsis of the book.

— Joanna K. Mercuri

Sixty Minutes with Eric Cantor

On Sept. 15, Fordham Law’s Forum on Law, Culture & Society joined the 92nd St. Y in sponsoring an appearance by U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). Thane Rosenbaum, the John Whelan Distinguished Lecturer in Law and director of the forum, moderated the Q and A.

Among subjects touched upon by Rep. Cantor were Pres. Obama’s decision to seek congressional authorization for an attack on Syria (“I was in support of granting the president that authority because I feel so strongly about America’s role in the world”); the chemical weapons agreement with Syria brokered by Vladimir Putin (“I’m worried now about the credibility of our (U.S.) word”); the Tea Party within the Republican Party (“Unfortunately the characterization by the media has been misportraying so many of those individuals, those moms, those grandmoms and dads . . . we’ve got more agreement than we have disagreement within our party”); global warming (“What our party has stood for is really almost like a cost-benefit analysis. Yes, we want clean air, clean water, we want to protect the environment. But you can’t do that if you can’t afford to put food on the table”); and the White House’s Hanukkah party (“[Pres. Obama] can hold his own [on the dreidel”).

You can see the entire interview at the Forum on Law, Culture & Society’s website.

Fordham Law's Karen Greenberg on CNN

Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham School of Law, appeared on CNN's Newsroom with Ashleigh Banfield to discuss a top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court order, which requires Verizon to turn over records on a daily basis.

The four-page order, published by the UK-based Guardian on its website Wednesday, requires the communications giant to hand over "originating and terminating" telephone numbers as well as the location, time and duration of the calls -- and demands absolute secrecy.

Check out video of Karen Greenberg's appearance on CNN here.

New Law School Tops Out

The final beam being secured at 8:52a.m., on Monday, November 12.
Photo by Thomas Walsh

At 8:52 a.m. this morning, November 12, the final steel beam of the new law school building was fastened into place. The new structure has been gaining steady attention over the the past two and a half years as it continues to steadily rise. The cast stone panels cladding the facade are quickly racing up after the steel, leaving quite an impression on theatergoers at Lincoln Center Plaza. The $250 million building, designed by the firm of Pei Cobb Freed, broke ground on February 3, 2011, and is scheduled to be completed by Fall, 2014, and will add 468,000 square feet to the Lincoln Center Campus.

The northwest corner receives the final beam.
Photo by Thomas Walsh

A ceremony commemorating the topping out will be held this Friday and will be officiated by Joseph M. McShane, S.J., the president of Fordham, and Michael M. Martin, dean of Fordham Law School.