Professor of Law. (Evidence; Contracts; Fact Investigation; Criminal and Civil Trial Advocacy; Urban
Legal Clinic; Constitutional Litigation Clinic.)
Professor Raveson is a 1976 graduate of the School of Law-Newark, where
he was a member of the Law Review. After graduation, he clerked
for Judge Phillip Forman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit, and then practiced with the ACLU Prisoners Rights Project and
Essex-Newark Legal Services. He also was a staff attorney in the Urban
Legal Clinic prior to his appointment to the faculty in 1981, and
served as director of that clinic from 1993 to 2001. In 1985, Professor
Raveson established the Environmental Law Clinic, then only the second
such law school clinic in the nation.
Professor Raveson has
litigated countless trials in state and federal courts, and numerous
appeals before the New Jersey Supreme Court and the Second and Third
Circuits, including Right to Choose v. Byrne, successfully
challenging the constitutionality of restrictions on Medicaid funding
for abortions and expanding the use of state constitutions as
independent sources of protection of individual rights; several police
misconduct actions; an action successfully challenging the
constitutionality of a municipal ordinance restricting street vending;
a case defining the parameters of the judicial contempt power, a topic
on which he has published three law review articles; an action arguing
for the recognition of a constitutional right to shelter for the
homeless; several HIV discrimination actions; the defense of an
attorney facing disbarment; and a case attempting to collect a judgment
against a Swiss bank for $124 billion, then the largest judgment in
history. Professor Raveson also helped to brief Karcher v. May
in the U.S. Supreme Court, a successful challenge to New Jersey's
"moment of silence" law. He was also one of the attorneys representing
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and John Artis in their federal habeas action,
which resulted in the reversal of their convictions after 17 years in
prison.
In 2001, Professor Raveson took a leave for several
years to establish and run an international solar energy company.
During a prior leave, from 1985 to 1987, he served as the Assistant
Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate.
Professor Raveson has also served on the New Jersey Supreme Court
Committees on Complementary Dispute Resolution and Civil Practice.
