Student Excellence
Student achievement is more than a measure of success—it reflects a culture of collaboration and support, and the strong foundation on which UB Law continues to build its legacy. Here are just a few examples from the past year of the many awards and recognitions that our outstanding students and recent graduates have achieved.
Jump to
Student Successes
Tyonna Acoff ’26
1st place recipient of the 2025 Future Legal Scholar Award at a writing competition presented by the Minority Bar Association of Western New York.
Asia Alexander ’26
2nd place recipient of the 2025 Future Legal Scholar Award at a writing competition presented by the Minority Bar Association of Western New York.
Ricardo Castillo ’25 (BA in Law Program)
Recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence, the highest honor SUNY bestows upon its students.
Michael Perrone ’25
Recipient of the President’s Pro Bono Service Award in the Law Student category, presented by the New York State Bar Association
Anastasya Wilson ’27
Winner of the Western New York Legal Diversity Career Fair’s essay contest for her essay defining success for the legal profession.
Serena Brahaspat ’25, Dylan Feliciano ’25 and Theresa Lee ’25
Recipients of the John L. Hargrave Student Awards presented by the Minority Bar Foundation of Western New York:
Student achievement lies at the heart of legal education’s mission. My work focuses on coordinating our collective efforts to ensure that every UB Law student has access to the resources, guidance and support they need to succeed academically and professionally. This means working collaboratively with faculty and staff to identify where students need additional support and fostering a culture where student success is our shared priority and every achievement— individual and collective —is celebrated.” —Professor Christine Pedigo Bartholomew, vice dean for student achievement
Legacy In Action: Meet Naomi Goni '26
Third-year UB Law student Naomi Goni ’26 has spent time on the ground floor of the legal system—and in contact with its highest reaches.
Goni, who holds master’s degrees in social work and public health, was inspired to go to law school by her experience counseling survivors of human trafficking in a safe house. In her home state of Florida, she also met with women who had been wrongfully incarcerated for exploitation-related charges, helping them explore how coercion and control had shaped their paths without defining who they were.
“Sometimes they didn’t understand they were survivors of human trafficking,” Goni says. “Sitting across from them, I saw clearly that justice without compassion is incomplete.”
This past summer, she held a fellowship with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s Civil Appellate Mediation Program, in New York City. There, she pursued what she calls her “passion project”: an interactive experience designed to introduce middle and high school students to the process of mediation.
She was asked to present the project to the court’s chief judge—and to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Today, it resides in the Justice for All Learning Center at the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse, inspiring young visitors to imagine themselves as future advocates.
A profound experience, but only one facet of Goni’s remarkably varied journey, which includes assisting women starting small businesses in Tanzania, representing asylum seekers in federal appeals through a Second Circuit practicum, and providing telehealth therapy to children and teenagers navigating trauma.
The Class of 2028: The Next Layer of Our Legacy
Every new class at UB School of Law arrives with great expectations, beginning their path to the profession while adding to the school’s rich legacy.
Dean S. Todd Brown and Vice Dean for Admissions Lindsay Gladney (front row center) with our new students.
This year’s entering class—one of the strongest academically ever to enroll—is already doing that. We asked Lindsay Gladney, vice dean for admissions, to run the numbers.
The Class of 2028, she says, is …
HIGH-ACHIEVING: The cohort’s median undergraduate grade point average is 3.71. That ties the Class of 2027 for the second-highest median GPA ever recorded at UB Law. And it’s just one one-hundredth of a point below our all-time high of 3.72, for the Class of 2026.
The median LSAT score of the new class is also the second-highest on record, matching the standout Classes of 2011, 2012 and 2014. Only the Class of 2013 scored higher.
FORMIDABLE: With 166 incoming three-year JD students, this is our largest 1L class since 2013.
GEOGRAPHICALLY DIVERSE: Out-of-state and international students make up nearly 15 percent of the cohort— a proportion double that of their immediate predecessors.
AND BLAZING TRAILS: Eighty-five percent say they’re first-generation law students, and 19 percent are the first in their families to graduate from college.