Home 40 Under 40 Archive by category The Class of 2015 (Page 2)

The Class of 2015

Amelia Holstrom

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40 Under 40 The Class of 2015
Associate Attorney, Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C.; Age 29

Amelia Holstrom

Amelia Holstrom

When Amelia Holstrom was growing up, her parents held jobs in management and spoke about their work at home. As a result, she witnessed their struggles when they had to terminate an employee and saw how others reacted in the small community where they lived.

“I’ve always wanted to be an attorney, and my parents helped to shape my worldview about how difficult it is for business owners and managers to do the right thing,” Holstrom said. “When people think about businesses, they tend to forget they are run by ordinary individuals who have to make difficult decisions.”

Today, she takes pride in helping clients with a wide array of employment and labor-related issues.

“An employer never wants to terminate an employee. They understand the person may have a spouse or a family and needs the paycheck,” she told BusinessWest. “People are deeply affected by it, and it’s never a decision that is taken lightly. So I help my clients make decisions about employees, so they can do the right thing and operate within the law. It’s always a real challenge to follow complicated and seemingly ever-changing employment laws.”

Meanwhile, her compassion for others is also reflected in service to the community. She is on the board of directors for the Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts, which she joined after her niece became a scout, and believes in the organization’s mission of helping girls “develop courage, confidence and character.”

Holstrom is also an ad hoc member of the personnel committee for the Food Bank of Western Mass. and organizes her firm’s participation in the annual Legal Food Frenzy conducted by the Mass. Attorney General’s Office to help local food banks solicit donations. The cause has always been important to her, and Holstrom coordinated a program that served the hungry and the homeless in Burlington, Vt. when she was a college student. “These people are often overlooked. There is a stigma associated with being homeless, but assistance, food, and programs are needed to help them,” she said.

Holstrom is also a speaker on employment-related issues for a wide variety of organizations, contributes regularly to the Massachusetts Employment Law Letter as well as her firm’s blog, and writes for local publications, including BusinessWest. “It’s important to me to support people at all levels,” she said. “My work is meaningful because I have always wanted to help people and build lasting relationships.”

Last month, Holstrom and her husband Stephen began another relationship — with their new baby boy, Carter.

— Kathleen Mitchell

Photo by Denise Smith Photography

Erin Buzuvis

By
40 Under 40 The Class of 2015
Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Studies, Western New England University School of Law; Age 38

Erin Buzuvis

Erin Buzuvis

Erin Buzuvis says that, when most people hear the phrase ‘Title IX’ — which states, in part, that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance” — they inevitably think of sports.

And while equality on the playing field, something lacking before this legislation, is certainly a part of this now-44-year-old statute, there is much more to it, said Buzuvis, who would know.

Indeed, she is one of the nation’s leading authorities on Title IX, has published numerous articles and book chapters on the statute, and has been quoted on the subject in a number of media outlets, including the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“One thing we’re seeing nationally is increasing recognition of Title IX’s application to areas other than athletics, which is not to say that we’ve reached full equality in athletics and we’ve decided to move on,” she explained. “Title IX is a very generally worded statute about sex discrimination and education, and there is now increased awareness of Title IX’s application to campus sexual assaults.

“Roughly 100 schools are now being subject to investigation by the Department of Education for their lack of sufficient policies and practices to prevent sexual assaults on campus,” she went on, adding that this was an aspect of the statute that had been unexplored in recent years.

Exploring the wide range of issues involved with gender and sexual equality is the informal mission of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Studies at Western New England School of Law, which Buzuvis helped launch in 2012 and now directs.

The center serves as an educational resource for the law school, the university, the legal community, and the general public, she explained, adding that it enables WNEU Law to provide students with unique opportunities to learn about gender and sexuality legal issues — and there are many of them — and graduate with a concentration in that emerging area of the law.

“We’re working on an upcoming program about housing-discrimination issues and challenges, and the legal response to those issues for the LGBT community, and we had a program last year on domestic-violence issues in the NFL,” she said, adding that the center was created to shine a spotlight on such matters — and keep that light on.

— George O’Brien

Photo by Denise Smith Photography

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