Bonzani Memorial Law Lecture

Bonzani Memorial Law Lecture

The John and Lawrence Bonzani Memorial Law Lecture is held in the fall semester and highlights a topic of interest related to the law. Prior lecturers have been Harpur College alumni who shared expertise in their field while engaging students interested in legal careers.


2024 Bonzani Lecture:

  • Criminalization & Survival
  • Presented by: Kate Mogulescu ’99
  • Thursday, November 14th, 2024 | 4:30p.m. - 6 p.m.
  • President’s Reception Room, Anderson Center - ßÙßÇÂþ»­


ßÙßÇÂþ»­ the lecture:

Criminalization & Survival: A lifelong public defender, Kate Mogulescu works alongside survivors of intimate partner abuse, commercial sexual exploitation and family violence who have been arrested, prosecuted and punished. She has spearheaded several efforts to address the criminalization of survivors, focusing specifically on women and gender-expansive people.

For the 2024 John and Lawrence Bonzani Memorial Law Lecture, she will share her experience organizing as part of the Survivors Justice Project collective and her efforts to push back against the massive interpersonal and systemic harms caused by the criminal legal system in the United States.


ßÙßÇÂþ»­ the speaker:

Kate Mogulescu, ’99
Kate Mogulescu, ’99

Kate Mogulescu is a Professor of Clinical Law at Brooklyn Law School. She directs the Criminal Defense & Advocacy Clinic, which she launched in 2017. Her work and scholarship focus largely on gender, sentencing and reentry issues in the criminal legal system, with a focus on gender-based violence, intimate partner abuse, sex work and human trafficking. Before starting the Clinic, Kate worked as a public defender at The Legal Aid Society for 14 years.

Kate has founded several projects, including the Exploitation Intervention Project (2011), the Survivor Reentry Project (2016) and the Survivors Justice Project (2020). She offers critical analysis of carceral approaches to violence and harm and advocates extensively against the criminalization of vulnerable and exploited people. Kate received her J.D. from Yale Law School and B.A. from the State University of New York at ßÙßÇÂþ»­.


Past Lectures: