By Shanice Punnett
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced last Friday the appointment of nine law school graduates as assistant district attorneys.
The new assistants were sworn in last week by Brown and will begin their careers with an intensive training course led by Assistant District Attorneys Kevin M. Duddy, director of trial advocacy, and Jennifer L. Naiburg, deputy director of trial advocacy.
During the next several weeks, the new ADAs will learn more about the law through lectures, courtroom observation and mock hearings. They will also receive practical, hands-on experience by going out on patrol with police officers, participate in simulations at the Police Department’s Tactics House and study firearms at the NYPD’s firing range.
The sessions will also include visits to correctional institutions and alternative sentencing programs.
“These young women and men were hired after a highly selective recruitment process that I established soon after I became the DA,” Brown said. “They are bright young professionals from some of the nation’s finest law schools who have elected to enter public service and serve the people of Queens County as prosecutors. I know that they will serve with distinction.”
The new assistants will be assigned to the Criminal Court/Intake Bureau, after which they will be offered the opportunity for assignments in the Appeals Bureau and the Investigations Division. Then they will enter an intensive trial training program before being assigned to the Supreme Court Trial Bureau.
The new prosecutors and the law schools from which they graduated are:
• George T. Del Fierro Jr., Pace University School of Law
• Genevieve N. Gadaleta, Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
• Angela Harper, Duke University School of Law
• John L. Mason, Pace University School of Law
• Melissa D. Medilien, Fordham University School of Law
• Paige L. Nyer, CUNY School of Law
• Kathryn A.A. O’Neill, Boston University School of Law
• Anish M. Patel, Brooklyn Law School
• Diana M. Schioppi, St. John’s University School of Law
