Closing a chapter, leaving a legacy
Two longtime UB Law staff members, who helped shape the UB Law experience, are stepping into retirement.
Dawn Skopinski, associate director of The Advocacy Institute and experiential education, and Amy Hypnarowski, administrative assistant for alumni relations, have exemplified the detailed, day-to-day commitment that it takes to keep the law school running smoothly. For decades, they have negotiated those details with skill and professional competence that will be sorely missed.
It says something, though, that each has spent close to her entire career in O’Brian Hall.
Dawn at the 2019 BPILP Auction.
Dawn Skopinski joined the staff in 1989 and spent 22 years in the Career Services Office, coordinating the legal recruiters who visited campus and later providing career counseling to students. She also earned her bachelor’s degree at UB early in that time.
In 2011, Skopinski became administrator of the law school’s externship program. Still a part of CSO, she focused primarily on careers and externships in the public sector. She helped students travel to a national public-interest career fair at New York University and provided invaluable staff assistance to the student-run Buffalo Public Interest Law Program. BPILP’s annual fund-raising auction is a major undertaking, and for many years, Skopinski helped coordinate that event and administered the student grants from the funds it raised.
In her most recent role, she was named associate director of The Advocacy Institute, the law school’s umbrella for programs that develop students’ advocacy skills. She has principal administrative responsibility as well for the New York City Program in Business and Law, and the school’s externship program.
Dawn (far right) with Jennifer R. Scharf '05, co-director of The Advocacy Institute; Prof. Anthony O'Rourke, former director of The Advocacy Institute; and Prof. Christine Pedigo Bartholomew, co-director of The Advocacy Institute.
It’s an extensive portfolio: managing the details for all competitions that UB Law hosts, providing support to students in the New York City Program, and assisting with more than 50 field placements every year. “I like doing behind-the-scenes work and paying attention to the details and logistics and all that fun stuff that makes things work,” Skopinski says.
“What really has driven me to stay this long has been the students,” she adds. “Watching them grow from that nervous first-year, to studying for the bar, and then seeing them a year after graduation looking all lawyerly and knowing that I’ve been a small part of their journey. It’s incredibly special.”
She and her husband, Peter, will spend part of the winter in Florida, and an assortment of house projects are on the retirement agenda as well.
“I’m grateful that I was able to have this career for this long,” she says. “I have lifelong friends who were also co-workers. It was a very rewarding career, and I feel very fortunate.”
Amy with her sister, Patricia Warrington, former assistant director for alumni relations.
Members of the UB Law Alumni Association’s board of directors are sometimes surprised that Amy Hypnarowski, administrative assistant in the Office of Alumni Relations, works only part time. She’s known to be on top of the details 24/7.
Hypnarowski was fresh out of high school when she got her first UB Law position, in 1981, as a faculty assistant to a group of seven law professors. She took care of preparing the course documents for each of their classes, well before computers were available to make the work easier.
She stayed in that position until 1988, when she left to start her family. When the kids were school age, she came back to O’Brian Hall, this time in the alumni office, where she was thrilled to be working alongside her sister, Patricia Warrington.
At first, she handled the bookkeeping and helped with event planning. Over time, her role expanded, and she became a point person for working with the LAA’s board of directors, which meets monthly and hosts major events including its Annual Dinner and presentation of its Distinguished Alumni Awards.
Amy (third from left) with her friends and colleagues in the Alumni and Communications Offices.
“I’m there any time they have questions or need support,” she says. “They’ll ask: What did we do at this event last year? Or how much money did we spend?” She provides a rich source of institutional knowledge, having kept the law alumni association’s finances in order for many years.
She also compiles detailed post-event analyses, a valuable tool “so that next year when they plan a similar event, they understand the details but also have some idea of how we can do better.”
She and her husband, Jamie, now have the freedom to visit their kids in Colorado; their son is getting married there this month. Other than that, she says, they may do some more traveling, and she’s thinking about taking up golf.
“I’ve always felt pretty lucky to have the job I had,” Hypnarowski says. “I’ve had wonderful co-workers, good bosses, and I’ve always had flexibility. I love working with the alumni board of directors, many of whom I have come to know quite well over the years and am very fond of. I think it says a lot about the law school that not just me, but others have stayed for such a long time.”
“For decades, Dawn and Amy have been part of the heartbeat of O’Brian Hall,” adds Dean Todd Brown. “Their behind-the-scenes work—steady, expert, and essential—has made UB Law a better place for all of us.”