The Hon. Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick will give the keynote address at the SU College of Law Commencement at 1 p.m. May 20 in the OnCenter, 800 State St.
A total of 258 juris doctorate candidates are expected to attend.
Dean Daan Braveman will preside, and Howard Johnson, dean of the Graduate School, will confer the degrees upon the students.
Professor Steven Wechler will deliver the faculty address. Lee S. Holtzman, president of the college's Class of 2001, will speak on behalf of the new graduates.
The invocation and benediction will be delivered by the Rev. Vaughn E. James LAW '98, visiting assistant professor of law and pastor of the Seventh-Day Adventist Churches of the Binghamton District.
Ciparick received her juris doctorate from St. John's University School of Law in 1967. She served as a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society in New York City from 1967 to 1969, when she became assistant counsel for the Judicial Conference of the State of New York. She was named chief law assistant of the Criminal Court of the City of New York in 1972 and counsel in the Office of the New York City Administrative Judge in 1974.
She was appointed judge of the Criminal Court of the City of New York in 1978 and was elected to the New York State Supreme Court in 1982. Ciparick was appointed to the Court of Appeals by then-Gov. Mario M. Cuomo on Dec. 1, 1993, and was sworn in on Jan. 4, 1994. She is the first Hispanic to serve on the Court of Appeals.
