Bryan Stevenson, JD, prominent death penalty defense attorney and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, kicks off the second half of the School of Law’s 13th annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series Thursday, Feb. 3, with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture on “Poverty, Incarceration, and Injustice in America.”
The yearlong series “Access to Justice: The Social Responsibility of Lawyers” brings to WUSTL prominent experts in such areas as civil rights, racial justice, the death penalty, social justice, clinical legal education and free speech.
Karen L. Tokarz, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service and director of the Dispute Resolution Program, coordinates the series in conjunction with Laura Rosenbury, JD, associate dean for research and faculty development and professor of law.
All lectures will be at noon in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall unless otherwise noted.
The speaker series is free and open to the public. Attendance earns one MCLE credit hour.
For more information, call (314) 935-8598 or visit law.wustl.edu.
The spring schedule:
• Feb. 3. Stevenson has won national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color in the criminal justice system.
He has assisted in securing relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, advocated for poor people and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice.
Stevenson leads the Equal Justice Initiative, a private, nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to indigent defendants and prisoners who have been denied fair and just treatment in the legal system.
He also is co-director of the Equal Justice & Capital Defender Clinic at the New York University School of Law, where he is on faculty.
Stevenson’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Black Law Students Association, the African and African-American Studies program in Arts & Sciences and the Assembly Series.
• Feb. 7. Corynne McSherry, JD, PhD, intellectual property director and Kahle Promise Fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, will speak on “Defending Free Speech and Fair Use Online.” This lecture will take place in the Trial Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall (Room 309).
McSherry specializes in intellectual property and free speech issues. While in law school at Stanford, McSherry published Who Owns Academic Work? Battling for Control of Intellectual Property (Harvard University Press, 2001).
McSherry’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Program and the Intellectual Property Law Society.
• March 25. Susan Fiske, PhD, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, will present “Envy Up, Scorn Down: How Social Status Divides Us.”
Fiske’s research addresses how stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination are encouraged or discouraged by social relationships, such as cooperation, competition and power.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work and Social Capital; the Women’s Law Caucus; and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program in Arts & Sciences.