Public Interest Law & Policy Series continues Jan. 20

The School of Law’s 12th annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series continues Jan. 20 with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture featuring John Payton, J.D., the director of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The yearlong series “Access to Justice: The Social Responsibility of Lawyers” brings to WUSTL prominent experts in such areas as racial justice, civil rights, international human rights, the economics of poverty, clinical legal education, public service and pro bono legal practice. The law school’s Clinical Education Program sponsors the series.

Karen L. Tokarz, J.D., the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service and director of the Dispute Resolution Program, coordinates the series in conjunction with Pauline Kim, J.D., associate dean for research and faculty development and professor of law, and Annette Appell, J.D., associate dean of clinical affairs and professor of law.

All lectures will be in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall unless otherwise noted and are free and open to the public.

Below is the schedule for the spring semester:

• 4 p.m. Jan. 20. Payton is known for his successful record in some of the most important and visible civil rights cases in the United States. His talk is titled “Our Unfinished Agenda: Identifying and Addressing Critical Barriers to Racial Justice and Equality.”

Payton served as lead counsel for the University of Michigan, arguing the landmark diversity case Gratz v. Bollinger in the Supreme Court. Earlier in his career, Payton represented the American Legacy Foundation in its suit against a large tobacco company and represented the NAACP in a suit brought by white merchants in Mississippi. Payton’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Black Law Students Association.

• Noon Feb. 11. Devon W. Carbado, J.D., vice dean and professor of law, the University of California at Los Angeles, will speak about “The Challenges for Anti-Discrimination Law After Obama.”

Carbado is co-author (with Mitu Gulati, J.D.) of the upcoming book on employment discrimination, “Acting White,” published by Oxford University Press. He will serve as a distinguished visiting scholar at Washington University Law.

Carbado’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Law & Culture Initiative, the American Constitution Society and the African & African American Studies Program in Arts & Sciences. A signing for “Acting White” and Carbado’s other books will follow the lecture.

• Noon Feb. 17. Wilma Liebman, J.D., chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), will speak about “The Revival of American Labor Law.”

Liebman has been a member of the NLRB since 1997. She also served as deputy director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. She acted as the chief operations officer of this federal agency, overseeing arbitration, alternative dispute resolution, international affairs and labor-management cooperation grants programs. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Dispute Resolution Program and the Women’s Law Caucus.

• Noon March 1. Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, J.D., associate professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, will discuss “Why Reparations for Black People of African Descent are Important to Democracy.”

Aiyetoro has extensive experience working domestically and internationally to obtain remedies for historical and present-day wrongs to people of color, women and other oppressed groups. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Africa Public Interest Law & Conflict Resolution Project and the African & African American Studies Program in Arts & Sciences.

• 4 p.m. March 3 in Graham Chapel. Gloria Steinem, feminist leader and prominent journalist, will speak about “Sex Trafficking and the New Abolitionists.”

Among many high-profile accomplishments, Steinem launched Ms. Magazine. Her most recent book is “Doing Sixty and Seventy.”

This lecture is co-sponsored by the George Warren Brown School of Social Work and the Assembly Series.

• Noon March 17. Regina Austin, J.D., the William A. Schnader Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, will present “Caught in the System: The Portrayal of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Juvenile and Adult Females in Non-Fiction Film.”

Austin is a leading authority on economic discrimination and minority legal feminism. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Law & Culture Initiative and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program.

• 9 a.m. March 19. Martin F. Guggenheim, J.D., the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law at New York University, will speak about “The Failed Promise of Gideon: The Need for a New Theory on the Right to Counsel.”

One of the nation’s foremost experts on children’s rights and family law, Guggenheim has been an active litigator in the area of children and the law and has argued leading cases on juvenile delinquency and the termination of parental rights in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Guggenheim is the keynote speaker for the Clinical Program’s Access to Equal Justice Colloquium in March that will bring together additional local and national experts to reflect on barriers to the fair administration of the law.

For more information on the series, call Shelly Ford at 314-935-8598.