Summer 2006 arthur liman program Public Interest Newsletter Liman Program Hosts Annual Colloquium and Joins in Dedicating the Portrait of the Honorable Stephen R. Reinhardt
On March 30-31, 2006, the Liman Program held its annual public interest law colloquium, gathering together advocates, scholars, practitioners, and students as they discussed organizing, both locally and globally, on behalf of individual clients and communities. The Colloquium began on Thursday evening, March 30th, with the unveiling of the portrait of the Honorable Stephen R. Reinhardt, YLS ’54, who sits on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. As Judge Reinhardt’s family, friends, former clerks, and colleagues celebrated the occasion, many noted the striking symmetry between the careers and commitments of Judge Reinhardt and of Arthur Liman. The parallels were mapped at the outset by Kenji Yoshino, Deputy Dean of Yale Law School, and in closing by Judith Resnik, Arthur Liman Professor of Law and founding director of the Liman Program. Opening Remarks Supreme Court, but the number of Muses focus on four similarities—their birth on Mount Helicon. This suggested to me and education, their experience in private that each Justice could be paired with a practice, their commitment to public muse. I started well. It is easy to find the service, and their legacies. muse of history and the muse of tragedy Arthur Liman was born on November on the Court. Until recently, the muse 5, 1932, in New York City, one year after of dance had an avatar in the aerobic Stephen Reinhardt was born in the same Justice O’Connor. It is even possible to city. Liman received his B.A. from Harvard find a muse of sacred hymns, if we count in 1954, and his J.D. from Yale in 1957. advocates of the pledge of allegiance (as Judge Reinhardt received his B.A. from I do). But when we look for a muse of Pomona in 1951, and received his J.D. erotic poetry, all invention gives out, the from Yale in 1954. Were it not for Judge imagination is beggared, and the pretty Reinhardt’s precocity in graduating from conceit must be surrendered. college at twenty, they would have walked On reconsideration, I decided instead the halls of this law school at the same to pair the two individuals we honor time. today—Arthur Liman, and Judge Stephen After completing their education, Reinhardt. Besides the critical, and we Liman and Judge Reinhardt spent many Deputy Dean Kenji Yoshino hope enduring, difference that one of years in private practice. Upon graduation these individuals is here only in spirit from Yale Law School, Liman joined the Good morning. It is my great honor to while the other is with us in person, New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, offer some opening remarks for the Ninth these two share a great deal. I wanted to continued on page 2 Annual Arthur Liman Colloquium. It is also my great pleasure, for I have always The Arthur Liman Public Interest Program Newsletter is published by: felt a kinship with the Liman Fellows. I started teaching at Yale Law School in 1997-98, when the first class of Fellows The Arthur Liman Public Interest Program Judith Resnik strode out into the world. We have grown Yale Law School Arthur Liman Professor of Law up side by side, and it is with delight and P.O. Box 208215 and Founding Director New Haven, CT 06520-8215 amazement that I acknowledge our ninth http://www.law.yale.edu/liman/ Marilyn Cassella year together. Senior Administrative Assistant So I decided to focus these remarks on Deborah Cantrell Phone: 203.432.7740 pairing, on how people can be mutually Arthur Liman Program Director E-mail: [email protected] ennobled by growing up and old with Phone: 203.432.2230 each other. I was going to riff off the Fax: 203.432.4876 All photos by Harold Shapiro number nine, because it is not only the E-mail: [email protected] number of Justices on the United States annual colloquium continued summer 2006
Wharton, & Garrison, where he rocketed with his biography shows that his event planned by the Fellows to collect to partnership. He won a major corporate passion for public service was not ignited and advance cutting-edge work in public case in 1985, representing Pennzoil but revealed when he ascended to that interest law. against Texaco as the two oil titans vied position. Judge Reinhardt has also left his for control of Getty. Throughout the Judge Reinhardt’s crusade for justice ageless mark. Yesterday, we unveiled a 1980s, he worked in white-collar crime, is also of national renown. Nominated portrait of the Judge with the awe and joy representing clients like junk-bond mogul by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, he that attend a graduate’s ascension to the Michael Milken. received his commission to the Ninth pantheon of the profession’s immortals. Judge Reinhardt took longer to enter Circuit Court of Appeals on September As a lover of the Harry Potter books, private practice. After Yale Law School, 11, 1980. For the past quarter century, I’ve always hoped that if I looked closely he served in the United States Air Force he has been an unmoved mover—the enough at the portraits that range the for two years and clerked for Judge unembarrassed and indefatigable walls, I would be able to catch their figures Luther Youngdahl on the District Court champion of the left. He has penned moving. In the future, I will be keeping for the D.C. Circuit. In 1957, however, so many influential opinions that it is the closest eye on Judge Reinhardt’s he too went into private practice, briefly impossible for an outsider to choose image, as I cannot imagine that even a for O’Melveny and Myers and then as a among them. Happily, in a recent painter could keep him still. But perhaps named partner in Fogel, Julber, Reinhardt, interview, he listed his favorites. These the Judge will choose to move instead Rothschild & Feldman, where he worked include an en banc opinion striking through the living legacy of his clerks and for two decades. down a state ban on physician-assisted protégés. When asked to describe the best The experience of both men in private suicide, another en banc opinion striking part of his job, Judge Reinhardt once said practice usefully erodes the traditional down a provision of a state constitution it included spending “most of his working distinction between private and public that prohibited state officials from using hours”—which he described as “most law. Today, most of us associate the any language other than English, an of his waking hours”—with “extremely names Liman and Reinhardt with public opinion holding that district courts have bright, young, enthusiastic law clerks who service. Yet it is hard not to attribute the jurisdiction to hear habeas petitions filed then go on to make their own significant trademark pragmatism through which by detainees on Guantanamo Bay, and a contributions to the law and the nation.” they realized their ideals in the public dissent opining that execution by hanging T0day’s Colloquium is literally spangled sector to their years in the private one. was “cruel and unusual” punishment. with those former clerks, as it sets their The third similarity between these two The fourth and final similarity between names off with asterisks. They populate individuals is their profound commitment Liman and Judge Reinhardt is the legacy every panel with distinction, as the group to the public good. While at Paul Weiss, they have bequeathed to us. Through the they represent populates the nation. Liman was the President of the Legal Liman Program, five or more Yale Law So today we celebrate a pair of Aid Society of New York, the President School graduates can work on year-long individuals who have shown us what it of the Neighborhood Defender Services projects under the aegis of public-interest means to live greatly within the law. They of Harlem, the Chair of the Legal Action organizations. Having supported many show us that this life is paradoxical, in Center in New York City, and the Chair students for the Liman Fellowship, I can that one becomes a giant not through self- of the New York State Capital Defender’s testify that the recipients are consistently aggrandizement, but through attention to Office. While some private lawyers just the most hard-headed and soft-hearted the weak, the unseen, and the inaudible. collect such titles, Liman distinguished individuals in each class. The Liman Fund Today, more than ever, we need their every distinction he earned. In 1971, he also supports a public-interest reading example. A student recently sent me a served as chief counsel on the New York group that meets weekly at the Law poem that has been an amulet for me state commission investigating the bloody School for discussion among faculty, law since I first read it as a teenager—William Attica prison riot. The commission, students, undergraduates, and interested Butler Yeats’s The Second Coming. I want which determined that the police assault members of the community. As if this to read you the first lines, as they capture had been excessively harsh, published a were not enough, the Liman Foundation, our times, and, unfortunately, her despair: 470-page report that was nominated for in concert with Arthur Liman’s son, the a National Book Award. Many of us first filmmaker Douglas Liman, has ensured Turning and turning in the widening gyre, encountered Liman when he came into that undergraduates from Barnard, The falcon cannot hear the falconer the national spotlight in 1987 as special Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Spelman, Things fall apart, the center cannot hold counsel to the United States Senate and Yale are funded to do public interest Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world committee probing the Iran-Contra work over the summer. And of course, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and scandal. But even a glancing acquaintance the colloquium we begin today is an everywhere summer 2006
The ceremony of innocence is drowned. had at their age. Those in my generation Attorney General’s office to lower dropout The best lack all conviction, while the worst seriously debate the ethics of bringing rates was like “treading water,” but that Are full of passionate intensity. children into our world. his colleagues showed an Olympian But perhaps most frightening of all capacity to do just that. These students I think I know why my student sent me is the third idea—that “the best lack all express passion and joy, and they also, this poem, because these lines have always conviction, while the worst are full of more subtly, express relief. They express resonated with me as a depiction of certain passionate intensity.” Yeats is observing relief that they are not driven by naiveté, aspects of the human predicament, and here that evil, unlike good, does not flinch an innocence that will be drowned. They particularly our current predicament. from inflicting harm. While he presents see that their mentors—despite their long The first is that “things fall apart.” We this as specific to a particular situation, hours and thankless jobs—have retained are fighting one of our most incarnadine those inside that moment can experience it their passion and joy over their entire wars, which has spawned terror and as an eternal verity, an intimation that the careers. torture and surveillance. That war both worst will always prevail. The best do not lack all conviction. reflects and reinforces a civil war of So what comfort can I give the student Yeats was not looking high enough. From ideology in which the difference between who sent me this poem? I can give her the gray eminences—Arthur Liman and the red and blue states, the wealthy and Arthur Liman and Stephen Reinhardt. Stephen Reinhardt—to the young clerks the poor, grows ever starker. The center But because she is a student, I am tempted and college students who are just coming does not seem to be holding. to give her the stories of other students into their adult years—what marks the The second idea is that “the ceremony instead. I can give her Andrea Yang of best is their conviction. Because of their of innocence is drowned.” The end of Harvard College, who as a Summer passionate intensity, even when the center our era of innocence is often cited to be Liman Fellow was struck by how much is not holding, the left will. And that is 9/11, but that date only serves, as many could be done through what she called an why, in the beautifully doubled sense of days do, to exemplify a broader and more “insistence on presence,” the presence of the phrase, the left will always hold its own. gradual shift. Many of our most sensitive otherwise voiceless individuals at Greater Professor Yoshino’s recent scholarship includes and intelligent young people are living Boston Legal Services. I can give her Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our with a more fragile and tentative vision of Xaykham Khamsavoravong of Brown who Civil Rights, published by Random House what is possible in a human life than we stated that working in the Rhode Island in 2006.
Family Values, Justice, Hope – and Collaborative Work
In this, our ninth year, as we close the fabulous lawyering and wise counsel. program, I believe that a few words on its The range of his commitments and genesis are in order. The Arthur Liman concerns was enormous. While working Public Interest Program and Fund is (or, more aptly, flourishing) as a partner at supported by generous gifts from the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Liman family, friends, business associates, and counseling a range of corporate and law firms including Paul Weiss and individual clients, Arthur also made the Cleary Gottlieb, the Yale Law School, and time to lead several major institutions increasingly, many alumni/ae of the Yale devoted to providing services to those who Law School. cannot afford lawyers. He was President We work under the name of Arthur of the Legal Aid Society of New York, Liman, class of 1957, and to do so is an chaired the board that created the Legal honor. Arthur was a person who paid as Action Center, served on the Board of the careful and close attention to his poor Vera Institute for Justice, was the founding clients, who had no public face or media President of Neighborhood Legal Services profile, as he did to famous clients and to of Harlem, and helped to form the Capital Judith Resnik, the government, which he served with such Defender Project of New York when that Arthur Liman Professor of Law distinction. From his high profile work on state reinstituted a death penalty. the Attica Commission and Iran Contra That Arthur Liman was both wise and to less visible activities, Arthur provided unusually smart marked him as one of a annual colloquium continued summer 2006 few outstanding attorneys. That he also practices, and debates about public interest School. cared passionately about social justice and lawyering, and so that they can share a One of the many gifts that this program devoted himself to its pursuit marked sense of community as they work on an has provided to me is that I serve as the him as one of even fewer great lawyer- array of disparate projects – civil and chair of the selection committee. We have citizens. Arthur’s contribution to the legal criminal, domestic and international, all the pleasure of reading applications from a profession consists of his insistence on the aimed at helping to give voice to social and host of terrific students, each of whom has two interwoven purposes of his career: political concerns about fair treatment of found many ways to contribute to others’ that lawyering required giving clients all persons. We have done so by reading well being, and to respond to dire needs for honest advice attuned to the consequences groups and special programs and by new service and new policies. The bottom on clients as well as on third parties, and helping current students work with Liman line is that from a single graduate fellow that lawyering required devotion to the Fellows on an array of projects. in 1997, when we began as I became the pursuit of fairness for everyone, not only Third, since we began, we have first Arthur Liman Professor of Law, to one’s own clients. In the last meeting I supported a few undergraduate students 2006, we now embrace 26 former fellows, had with Arthur, he bemoaned the turn of who, under the auspices of the Phillips 5 current fellows, 7 incoming fellows and, lawyers away from these lawyerly attributes Brooks House at Harvard, worked this year, 24 undergraduate fellows. and into what he termed “accountants,” during the summers in public interest Let’s be clear, this expanding program by which he meant individuals concerned law settings. Arthur Liman came from happens in part from good will; in part more with profit margins than with an undergraduate career at Harvard to from true commitment; in part from wisdom, fairness, and the public good. Yale Law School, and through support of great insight, and in part because of With the work and commitments of Harvard undergraduates, we have been able resources. We have been able to do this Arthur as a model, Yale’s Liman Program to honor both of the schools he cherished. work because of the support of others. has several goals. First, we provide What is particularly exciting about this, Thanks are more than appropriate in fellowships to Yale Law School graduates, our Ninth Colloquium, is that I am able several directions. Tony Kronman, former doing public interest through a collection of to describe how this program has grown. Dean of the Yale Law School, recruited creative projects. Our fellows are engaged With the generous support of Doug Liman, Denny Curtis and myself to return to Yale in helping a wide array of people, as can we expanded to have undergraduates at and join this faculty, and Tony deserves be seen from learning a bit about the five Brown University (where Doug went) and great credit for his willingness to nurture Law School Fellows this year. Kim Pattillo at Yale College (where we are). Thereafter, and to build this program. Harold Koh, Brownson is working to help school we were able to include Barnard College who succeeded Tony to the Deanship, has children in California have not only quality (Ellen Liman’s and Lisa Cohen Liman’s continued with an equally complete set education but the very basics to which they alma mater). of commitments to the profession and its are entitled as a matter of California law. This year, we have added two new public interest obligations. Under Tony’s Holly Thomas is working with teenagers schools, Princeton University (from which and Harold’s wise guidance, the Yale Law and their families in Mississippi as they Emily Liman graduated and where we School supports the infra-structure that have to deal with those young people who support both undergraduate and graduate enables us to flourish. Despite unending have sentences of life in prison without summer fellows) and Spelman College. fiscal pressures for retrenchment, this parole –a phenomenon so common that With attendees from all of these schools Law School’s appropriate and genuine it has a nickname–LWOP. Jorge Baron at these conferences, we are able to help commitment to public service remains plain and Eliza Leighton are both dealing with to build an inter-generational group of by its work in this–and in other–programs. the challenges facing immigrants. These Fellows and to forge links that ensure Both of these deans have been aided fellows work, respectively, in Connecticut that summer students have high quality by the gracious and creative support of and Maryland, and then intersect with placements, and to know of potential those with whom they work, Steve Yandle, and help to frame and respond to national mentors and of colleagues across the Mark Templeton, Kenji Yoshino, Mike debates on migration. Sophia Yakren, in country. And, a few of those who had been Thompson, and Barbara Johnson. We in New York City, is dealing with a client summer fellows are now Yale Law students turn have been aided each year by Marilyn population in the administrative system or newly admitted students. Cassella and, this year, by Aaron Weiss who who need economic assistance and who Not only does this year mark the is himself en route to his own graduate have forms of mental disabilities that addition of new schools to the summer program in international relations. Further, undercut their ability to negotiate the program, it also is the first time that we the program, which began first with my welfare process. will be able to fund seven post graduate help and then with the enormous infusion Second, we provide a program here at law fellowships, including one that is our of energy and direction by Mary Clark Yale Law School so that law students can first joint fellowship–cosponsored with the (now a professor at American University) gain a better understanding of the history, Brennan Center for Justice, at NYU Law has the good fortune to have, as its director, summer 2006
Members of the Liman Network gathered at the close of the Colloquium. Included in the photo are current Liman Fellows, current and former Summer Fellows, advisors from schools participating in Summer Fellowships, and Doug Liman (in the back, center), who is Arthur Liman’s son and a filmmaker.
Deborah Cantrell, who joined us after about more justice. In the last two days, days, beautifully expressed by many, and serving as executive director of the Western one also heard the word family–used (as it especially by Kenji Yoshino, who opened Center on Law and Poverty and who is a should) to include persons linked by literal our Colloquium, and by Doug Liman who major force in public interest lawyering. family bonds and others joined through closed the session. All our students know how much her work shared kinship commitments to help Hope and justice, as well as the here, as well as in the Lawyering Ethics others. This is “family values” at its best. gaining and the making of power to Clinic, contributes to their knowledge and The third aspect of the event, important help the underrepresented, are not solo networks of affiliation. to underscore, has been the optimism activities. Rather, these are collective That brief overview of our history expressed throughout. As Denny Curtis and collaborative tasks, which is the brings me to a very special aspect of this, noted, surprisingly, given the many terrible essential message of the Reinhardt clerk our Ninth Colloquium, which is that it is initiatives underway in the United States brigade, as it is the essential message of a joint venture with another remarkable government, cheerfulness pervades the the Liman Program. The challenges are group of people, those affiliated with the discussions. I was reminded of a recent not well suited for those interested in Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, also an essay in the New York Times about making only cameo appearances. Rather, alumna of Yale Law School, class of 1954. hope in the context of individuals facing this is life’s work, as is well illustrated by His portrait was unveiled yesterday. We terrible illness. In a letter to the paper, the commitments of Steven Reinhardt are joined today on the program and in one woman, who is a longtime cancer and of Arthur Liman, and by the many the audience by a remarkable number of survivor and a psychologist at Harvard, clerks, students, colleagues, fellows and his former law clerks (some of who are wrote that hope was not something one has classmates who have joined together today our faculty colleagues) and his friends. but rather something one does with others. to reiterate their own willingness to work First, and foremost on that list, is Ramona That has been vividly true these last two for, and towards, justice. Ripston, Judge Reinhardt’s spouse, the Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California, and the host this year of Liman Fellow Kim Pattillo Brownson. Three leitmotifs are shared by those affiliated with Judge Reinhardt and those affiliated with the Liman program. First is the quest for justice. Time and again that word has been used–and sadly enough, the word justice is not always used as often as it should. But in an event in which the personages of Stephen Reinhardt and Arthur Liman are central, so too is justice. Second is an insistence on inter- generational collaborative work to bring Dean Harold Hongju Koh at portrait unveiling of the Honorable Stephen R. Reinhardt. summer 2006 Liman Colloquium Panelists Consider Organizing & Reorganizing: Public Interest in Individual and Global Contexts
On March 31, 2006, each of the Colloquium panels addressed aspects of the theme, “Organizing and Reorganizing.” In each segment, a current Liman Fellow, individuals who had clerked for Judge Reinhardt, and other experts spoke from their expertise on topics described below. Judge Reinhardt’s clerks are marked with an asterisk in the photos.
Front Row: Cary LaCheen, Senior Attorney, Welfare Law Center; Samuel R. Front Row: Peter Neufeld, Innocence Project, New York City; Daniel Tokaji*, Bagenstos*, Prof. of Law, Washington University of St. Louis School of Law. Asst. Professor of Law, Ohio St. Law School; Holly Thomas, Liman Fellow, Back Row: Sofia Yakren, Liman Fellow, Urban Justice Center; Pat Kaplan, NAACP LDF. Back Row: Deborah Labelle, Esq., Ann Arbor, MI; Brett Dignam, Executive Director, New Haven Legal Assistance Association; Deborah J. Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law School. Cantrell, Clinical Lecturer, Director, Arthur Liman Public Interest Program Enabling the Disabled: Work, Education, Treatment Life, Death & Strategy: The Death Penalty, Life & Welfare Without Parole, & Juveniles
Disagreements exist about how to best empower those with Advocacy groups such as the NAACP Legal Defense & disabilities and how well law and social structures currently Education Fund have begun a project on the number of juveniles integrate people with disabilities. What forms of accommodation sentenced to life without possibility of parole (LWOP). This should be made? What ideas about equality, work, welfare, panel considered the interaction between efforts on behalf of and disability underlie the various approaches? How does the juveniles sentenced to LWOP and advocacy on death penalty welfare system respond to enable those with disabilities who cases. For example, some anti-death penalty advocates rely seek to work? Those were some of the questions explored by on the possibility of life without parole to assuage concern the speakers, as were the issues of the complex responsibilities about abolition of capital punishment. Yet both efforts rely on of lawyers working in this area and using both individual and social science data such as the race and class of the populations aggregate strategies. confined, and make arguments that engage both state and federal constitutional law as well as international treaties.
At the Colloquium luncheon, participants had an opportunity to learn more about Judge Reinhardt, in part from an introduction by his former clerk, Professor Heather Gerken (middle), who has just joined the Yale Law Faculty, and in part from a conversation between the Judge and another former clerk, Harvard Law Professor David Barron (right).
Left to Right: Honorable Stephen R. Reinhardt, Professor Heather Gerken*, Professor David Barron*. summer 2006
Front Row: Jorge Baron, Liman Fellow, New Haven Legal Assistance Front Row: Thomas Saenz*, Chief Counsel, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Association; Eliza Leighton, Liman Fellow, CASA of Maryland; Benjamin Villaraigosa; Ramona Ripston, Executive Director, ACLU of Southern Sachs*, General Counsel, SEIU. Back Row: Michael Wishnie, Clinical Professor California; Kim Pattillo Brownson, Liman Fellow, ACLU of Southern of Law, Yale Law School; Kate Andrias*, Visiting Professor, Institut d’Etudes California. Back Row: David Barron*, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Politiques, Paris; former organizer/area director SEIU; Dennis Curtis, Clinical Joanne Mariner*, Deputy Director, Americas Program, Human Rights Watch; Professor Emeritus of Law Yale Law School. Robert Solomon, Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law School.
Communities Of and For Change: The Local, the Organizing & Reorganizing: The Challenges for National, the Global Immigrants & Labor
What kinds of interventions, invoking what set of laws or What forms of legal or social action bring out what plausible using politics, at which levels of government will bring about positive results under current immigration and labor laws? progressive changes? What risks of backlash exist? How do those Considering examples such as litigation challenging denials of working for government deal with the conflicting pressures of drivers’ licenses to immigrants and organizing campaigns such advocates? Using efforts in California at the state and local levels as “Justice for Janitors,” this panel discussed social movements, to improve the public schools, to respond to homelessness, and both local and global, that are responding to restrictive work efforts at the international level to protect individuals’ dignity, and immigration policies. Panelists talked about a myriad of this panel addressed the relationships among boundary-crossing local innovations, as well as the help received from advocacy social movements. groups abroad, informing Americans of workers’ rights in other countries. 2005–06 Liman Fellows
We asked 0ur 2005-06 Liman Fellows immigrant community in our area about groups increasingly calling the office to to reflect on the circumstances they have the realities of immigration. I have ask us to conduct presentations in their encountered in their work that they had not been carrying out this goal primarily by area. predicted in their fellowship proposals. Some conducting presentations at different The level of media attention on of their thoughts are excerpted below: local venues where members of the immigration has also brought with community can come in and hear a short it some challenges. There is even Jorge Baron, New Haven Legal overview about the immigration system more confusion about immigration Assistance Association and later meet individually with me or law. For instance, after the House of When I first submitted my fellowship a colleague to ask individual questions. Representatives approved a bill in proposal to work on immigrants’ rights In the first half of my fellowship, I had December that would have criminalized issues at New Haven Legal Assistance, I to be very proactive in setting up these assisting an undocumented immigrant to did not know that the issue of reforming sessions by contacting community groups reside in the United States, I began to hear our immigration system would explode and pushing them to ensure the events questions from social services providers into the national consciousness shortly happened. Over the past few months, as about whether they should immediately into my fellowship. the topic of immigration has taken center stop serving immigrants who could not One of the goals of my fellowship stage in news coverage, the situation has prove lawful status. Later, as the Senate proposal was to help educate the been reversed, and I now have community considered some forms of legalization for 2005–2006 liman fellows continued summer 2006 undocumented immigrants, I began to get questions from undocumented individuals as to what kind of paperwork they should take to the immigration office to apply for programs they thought had already been approved. All of those issues came up before any new law was in place, and they underscore how concerned and frightened so many people are. I hope that my ability to dispel some of this misinformation has enhanced the value of my fellowship, but I often find it difficult to keep up with the rumors and half-truths that get circulated at times like these. A related challenge has been that there is little concrete information that I can give to people who are often desperate for information. The fact is that none of us working on these issues can predict what Front Row: Eliza Leighton, Holly Thomas. Back Row: Jorge Baron, Kim Pattillo Brownson, Sofia Yakren. Congress will ultimately do in terms of immigration reform, if it does anything at litigation was unexpected because the my project’s focus, which is to utilize all. Nonetheless, through the community case did not exist when I sought my legal and legislative remedies supported presentations and through fielding fellowship. Moreover, I had assumed that by organizing, advocacy, and popular many individual calls, I am striving to opposition to desegregation was a thing of education strategies to help residents ensure that members of the immigrant the past, so I was initially quite surprised improve their own community, I have community are well-informed about to find myself confronting parties who spent a great deal of time focused on developments that could have a significant unabashedly and actively opposed the national movement and its local impact on their lives. long-standing desegregation programs. counterparts. While my work has engaged Although I had certainly studied me deeply in the community and achieved Kim Pattillo Brownson, ACLU of desegregation litigation in the context of some of the ends outlined in my project Southern California the 1960’s and 1970’s, the new cases on proposal, the means have been different My original project proposal focused which I am working have prompted me than I had anticipated. almost exclusively on helping the ACLU to re-examine those historical precedents An additional unforeseen circumstance of Southern California implement the in light of recent efforts to dismantle was the amount of time that one of my settlement of the statewide educational desegregation programs. cases would take. In November, CASA adequacy lawsuit known as Williams. filed a lawsuit on behalf of thirteen Eliza Leighton, CASA of Maryland I expected primarily to be involved in individuals and one organization against monitoring the compliance of various Like Jorge Baron’s experience, the main six defendants, including the Maryland schools and school districts with the circumstance that my project proposal Motor Vehicles Administration (MVA) settlement’s new accountability standards had not taken into account was the way and the Department of Transportation that govern school facilities, instructional in which immigration would become a (DOT) for unlawfully denying drivers’ materials, and teacher credentials. central national issue, as it has over the licenses to out-of-country applicants. Although I have devoted considerable time past months. As a result of this spotlight Due to both the nature of the case and the to this portion of my project, I have also on our country’s broken immigration number of plaintiffs, the litigation has begun working on two new cases in which system and the engagement by so many been very time consuming. Working to we intervened on behalf of students and in trying to fix it, my host organization, involve all of the thirteen individuals and parents when a conservative organization CASA of Maryland, has put a great the one organization in the lawsuit has challenged the constitutionality of Los deal of resources into supporting our been logistically challenging (in terms of Angeles Unified School District’s magnet regional coalition in an effort to help coordinating people’s schedules to discuss school desegregation program. build a national movement. Given strategy) and substantively challenging (in My involvement in the magnet school both my organizing background and terms of finding agreement on how the summer 2006 various parties want to proceed). There there is racial discrimination in juvenile narrowly (and carefully)-construed class have also been twists in the case, such as LWOP sentencing requires the ability to could adequately mitigate this risk in light a motion to intervene as a defendant filed compare the pool of people eligible to be of the potential upsides of creating helpful by the group called “9-11 Families for a so sentenced with those who actually have precedent, I have encountered the many Secure America.” The group stated to the been sentenced. The data on the pool are challenges of designing a class action media that it was seeking to intervene not readily accessible, since one must look lawsuit. Among these challenges has been because it had learned that the Maryland at all murders committed by juveniles having the faith that my litigation concept, Attorney General had expressed sympathy to determine whether the prosecutor an outgrowth of only a short time in the for our position and the group wanted to could have or did seek a capital murder field, is the appropriate one to pursue – “prevent a sweetheart deal.” The group’s versus simply a murder charge; plea that it is worth the resource allocation and motion was denied by the Circuit Court bargains must also be taken into account. will reap the right kinds of benefits. This for Baltimore City, one of our state trial Furthermore, many states have procedures concern is compounded by the pressure courts. by which a case can be transferred back to of achieving in a short time-frame what the juvenile court, in which event the case in fact requires prolonged contemplation Holly Thomas, NAACP Legal Defense & record is typically sealed. The challenge and investigation. Without the luxury of Education Fund of determining how race plays into time, there is a temptation to make trade- I undertook my fellowship project with sentencing outcomes is one that I will thus offs that should not be made in crafting the goal of raising public awareness continue to face as I move forward with litigation that could impact thousands of about the sentencing of juveniles to life the project in the coming months. people. In particular, it has been difficult without parole (JLWOP) in Mississippi to determine whether to prioritize plaintiff and Louisiana. My plan was to produce Sofia Yakren, Urban Justice Center outreach – which has become more of a a report focusing particularly on the Through my fellowship, I aspired project than anticipated due to changes issue of racial discrimination and to to invoke the Urban Justice Center’s in the Mental Health Project’s clinic – or develop a related media campaign in both trademark method – the combination of legal research when time does not always jurisdictions. To understand these issues, direct legal services and systemic advocacy allow for both to occur simultaneously. a fundamental task for my project was to – to defend individuals with psychiatric answer the question of exactly who was disabilities against discrimination by serving JLWOP. New York City’s welfare agency. I have Current and former Fellows have received Although I imagined that state encountered unexpected challenges local and national press coverage for their Departments of Correction would, for along both the individual and systemic work on the immigration debate. For example, the most part, have accurate information dimensions of my work. One of the in an April 26th article in The New York available, it soon became apparent that biggest challenges in my individual Times titled “Student’s Prize is a Trip into this was not the case. In Mississippi in work has been the reality that, under the Immigration Limbo,” Amy Meselson talked particular, the first data produced by the current welfare system, my victories are about representing a young immigrant man Department of Corrections turned out invariably short-lived. Even an effectively- who has become a stellar math and science to contain the names of persons serving represented disabled client is perpetually student at his East Harlem high school. both life and life without parole. Another at risk of further welfare sanction. data request revealed even more names, Accordingly, systemic advocacy has proved but still included persons serving life a necessary counterpart to direct advocacy sentences. Furthermore, while the data – both as a practical and psychological included some persons who had been matter. taken off of death row in the aftermath Of course, it has become apparent of the Roper decision, which found that appropriate systemic work can unconstitutional the juvenile death be difficult to craft and slow to reap penalty, it did not include all of those benefits. Most fundamentally, I have at names. The lengthiness and difficulty of times questioned the ultimate goal of the process of discerning who was serving my fellowship proposal – to file a class what sentence was a circumstance I had action lawsuit under the Americans with not foreseen. Disabilities Act (ADA) – given the risk I had also not predicted the difficulty of of creating detrimental precedent in a determining whether racial discrimination judicial climate that may not be receptive affects sentencing. To learn about whether to ADA claims. Having resolved that a 10 summer 2006 Introducing the 2006–07 Liman Fellows
The Arthur Liman Public Interest Program at Yale Law School is delighted to announce seven recipients of Liman Fellowships for 2006-07. The Fellows will spend a post- graduate year advocating on behalf of those underserved or underrepresented in the law. The Liman Program is deeply grateful to its generous supporters who made it possible to increase the number of fellowships available for the coming year.
Alice Clapman who graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, is a 2003 graduate of Yale Law School. Having clerked last year for the Honorable Naomi Reice Buchwald in the Southern District of New York, Alice is working this year for the Honorable Chester J. Straub of the United Front Row: Charisa Smith, Paige Herwig, Larry Schwartztol. Back Row: Sameera Fazili, Marc Silverman. States Court of Appeals for the Second Not pictured: Alice Clapman, Anna Rich. Circuit. Alice’s Liman Fellowship will be at the Immigrants’ Right Project of the ACLU or emergency contraception, Paige will help to support legislative and administrative in New York, where she will shape a project draft state policies to require pharmacists to fill reforms of disenfranchisement laws. to develop due process protections, including prescriptions without harassment or delay. Marc Silverman rights to counsel, for mentally incompetent graduated summa cum Anna Rich immigrants who are subject to detention and , who graduated with high honors laude from Yale College in 2003 and from removal proceedings. from Swarthmore College and from Yale Law the Law School in May 2006. He will School in 2003, is currently in her second year spend his fellowship year at Advocates for Sameera Fazili graduated magna cum laude of clerking for the Honorable Claudia Wilken Children of New York, Inc. where, using the from Harvard College in 2000 and from the of the Northern District of California. Anna’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Law School in May 2006. Sameera will spend Liman Fellowship will be at the Oakland, he will advocate on behalf of older youth her Liman Fellowship year at Shorebank California office of the National Senior with disabilities in need of help as they move in Chicago, working with their affiliate, Citizens’ Law Center, where she will serve as from schools to employment, post-secondary Northern Initiatives, to create a consortium of an advocate for individuals with disabilities education, training programs, and independent community development financial institutions and for low-income older persons who are living. Marc’s project also will explore what (CDFIs) in an innovative effort to help raise adversely affected by Medicare’s new private- forms of reform and impact litigation would investment capital for persons with less access plan based prescription drug law, called improve the opportunities of this vulnerable to such funds. Her project will help strengthen Medicare Part D. segment of students. the CDFI industry, aimed at improving the Larry Schwartztol Charisa Smith ability of marginalized communities to obtain is a 2005 graduate of is a 2005 graduate of the the financial resources necessary for economic the Law School and a 2001 graduate of the Law School and is currently clerking for the development. University of Chicago. He is currently clerking Honorable F. Lee Forrester in the United for the Honorable Harry T. Edwards on the States District Court in Trenton, NJ. Charisa Paige Herwig graduated magna cum laude D.C. Circuit. Larry will hold our first joint graduated cum laude from Harvard in 2000. from Yale College in 2002 and from the fellowship at the Brennan Center for Justice, Charisa’s Liman Fellowship is to begin a Law School in May 2006. For her Liman which is affiliated with NYU Law School. new project at JustChildren in Richmond, Fellowship, Paige will work at The National There, Larry will be a part of its Democracy Virginia. Her focus will be on juvenile parolees Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C. Program. His efforts will be directed towards who need legal assistance to obtain housing, Her project will focus on state regulations of the reform of state felony disenfranchisement education, health care, mentors, and vocational pharmacies, as she explores how to enable laws and the enforcement of the voting rights training. Charisa hopes to help grassroots better access to contraception in light of the provided in some states for individuals with efforts by juvenile parolees and their families to unwillingness of some pharmacists to dispense criminal convictions. In addition to litigation, affect local legislation. Her goal is to establish contraception. In addition to assisting Larry will spearhead efforts to enlist law one-stop “welcome centers,” with a range of individuals who have been met by pharmacists enforcement officials and related state agencies services, for juvenile parolees in Richmond. refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control 11 summer 2006 2006 Liman Summer Fellows
The Arthur Liman Program supports students at Barnard, Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Spelman and Yale to spend a summer working at a public interest law program. Summer Fellows have worked on issues such as children’s rights, immigrants’ rights, drug policies, indigent criminal defense, and the death penalty. The Summer Fellowships are funded by the generous support of Arthur Liman’s son, filmmaker Doug Liman, and the Liman Family Foundation.
From left: Sara Conlon, Emily Donaldson, Holly From Left: Charles Cummings, Vanessa Huang, From Left: Amanda Sonis Glynn, Cindy Tan, Snow. Not pictured: Christina Kuan Tsu. Felicity Rose, Benjamin Miller. Not pictured: Nina Andrea Halpern, Michael O’Rourke. Not pictured: Keough, Alan Flam. Barnard College Tatiana Chaterji. Sara Colon, ’06, Harlem Community Advocacy Brown University Harvard University Project, NYC Charles Cummings, ’06, Campaign for Tatiana Chaterji, ’08, Women’s Refugee Project, Emily Donaldson, ’07, NARAL Pro-Choice NY, Educational Equity, NYC UC Hastings School of Law, San Francisco NYC Vanessa Huang, ’06, Justice Now, Oakland Andrea Halpern, ’07, Gay & Lesbian Advocates Holly Snow, ’06, Indiana Domestic Violence Nina Keough, ’06.5, Rhode Island Right to & Defenders, Boston Coalition & Prevention Network, Vote, Providence Michael O’Rourke, ’08, Medical-Legal Indianapolis Benjamin Miller, ’07, ACLU of Maryland, Partnership for Children, Boston Faculty Advisor: Christina Kuan Tsu, Associate Dean Baltimore Cindy Tan, ’08, Legal Aid Society, NYC of Studies Felicity Rose, ’06, The Sentencing Project, Faculty Advisor: Amanda Sonis Glynn, Director, Washington, DC Harvard Public Service Network Faculty Advisor: Alan Flam, Senior Fellow, Swearer Center for Public Service
Front Row: Deborah Becher, Stephanie Greenwood, From Left: Brittany Armstrong, Advisor Desiree Front Row: Carly Rothman, Tess Korobkin, Kathleen Applegate. Back Row: Michael Murray, Pedescleaux, Ashlee Caligone. Not pictured: Elizabeth Ashamu. Back Row: Daniel Winnik, Tiffany Bergin, Valerie Atkins, Sara Holloway. Stacey Abrams, Kianga Ellis, and Dennis Lindsay. Matthew Wansley. Not pictured: Richard Not pictured: Kim Lane Scheppele. Schottenfeld. Spelman College Princeton University Yale University Ashlee Caligone, ’06, Juvenile Public Defenders Valerie Atkins, ’07, Kansas Legal Services, Topeka Office, Austin Elizabeth Ashamu, ’06, Defense for Children Tiffany Bergin, ’07, Center for Community Brittany Armstrong, ’06, National Center for International, Togo, West Africa Alternatives, NYC Youth Law, Oakland Tess Korobkin, ’06, Youth Rights Media, Sara Holloway, ’06, Beyondmedia Education, Chicago Faculty Advisors: Dr. Desiree Pedescleaux, Dean New Haven Michael Murray, ’06, Legal Aid Bureau, Annapolis of Undergraduate Studies, Associate Professor Carly Rothman, ’06, The Star-Ledger, New Graduate Fellows: of Political Science; Stacey Abrams, Deputy Jersey Deborah Becher, Ph.D. candidate, City Attorney, City of Atlanta; Kianga Ellis, Matthew Wansley, ’07, ACLU National Capital The Reinvestment Fund, Philadelphia President, Avail Art, L.L.C.;Dennis Lindsay, Area, Washington, DC Stephanie Greenwood, MPA/JD candidate, Tenants Career Counselor, Office of Career Planning & Daniel Winik, ’07, Public Defender Service for & Workers Support Committee, Alexandria Development the District of Columbia Faculty Advisors: Kim Lane Scheppele, Director, Faculty Advisor: Richard Schottenfeld, Master Program in Law and Public Affairs of Davenport College, Professor of Psychiatry, Rockefeller Professor of Public Affairs and Human Yale Medical School Values, Woodrow Wilson School; Kathleen Applegate, Program Manager, Law and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School 12 summer 2006 Reflections on Becoming a Public Interest Advocate
We asked one of our first Summer Fellows, the program and learned more about Legal Representation Program at Human Joanna Lydgate (Yale ’03), now an advocate the justice system than I had from any Rights First, helping to secure legal at Human Rights First, to reflect on her path seminar. By the end of the summer, I representation for refugees who have to becoming a public interest advocate. knew two things: I wanted to do client- fled political, religious, ethnic, and centered work, and I was fascinated by the gender-based persecution. My days at In the spring of 2003, joyful, confused, intersection of our courts and our youth. Human Rights First, as at Legal Aid, are about to graduate from college, I was In September, I began a full-time position anchored by direct work with clients. lucky enough to discover the Liman at the Legal Aid Society of New York, I am constantly reminded that none of Summer Fellowship. An English major working with children and young people my professional experience has been at Yale, I was fascinated by the political involved in child welfare and juvenile such a stretch from my days of literature power of storytelling and thought I might delinquency proceedings in the Bronx seminars and writing workshops. I am one day teach post-colonial literature. But Family Court. During my time at Legal here to help these clients tell their stories my interests kept seeping outside of the Aid, I was able to advocate on behalf of – stories that are as powerful and as classroom walls. Listening to the panelists young people stuck in the very situations political as any in the pages of a book. at the Liman Colloquium that spring, I Youth Rights Media works to prevent. I try to return to the Liman began to wonder if I had found a new I left my job at Legal Aid in 2005 to Colloquium each year. This career is still path. travel overland through Central America, new to me, and it’s exciting to feel part That summer, I worked at Youth from Costa Rica to Mexico. I spent of a community. I go to remind myself Rights Media, a New Haven organization the majority of my time in Nicaragua, of why I’m here and where I might be that engages youth in video media where I visited an educational project for headed, to hear the stories other people production and community organizing to street kids, whose stories and lives were are telling. equip them with the skills to effect change strikingly similar to those of the youth I in their communities and in Connecticut’s had come to know in the Bronx. When I Joanna returned to the Law School in March juvenile justice system. I was in the belly returned to the States, I searched for a job for this year’s Colloquium. You can see her in of the non-profit beast, and I loved every with an international slant. our group photo on the right standing behind minute of it. I spent most of my time Almost a year ago, I began working Judith Resnik. working directly with young leaders in as a Program Associate in the Asylum
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