Event Tag: 1L

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The world of public interest law presents boundless possibilities — so many that it may feel hard to know where to start or how to plan a career path. Join Wasserstein Fellow Tory Nugent for a discussion that combines conceptual frameworks, practical advice, and personal experience. Through the lens of her 30+ year career working for public interest organizations and litigating complex consumer, environmental, and public health cases, Tory will talk about the skills, knowledge, and experiences that she accumulated and carried from one project to the next. In this lunchtime chat, you will hear about the different types of practice – policy, legislating, and litigation — as well as the wide-range of subject matter that falls within the definition of public interest work. And perhaps most importantly, you will talk about ways to think about work and define meaning and satisfaction – personally and professionally — as you start to envision daily work, a job, and a career arc. Lunch provided. Please RSVP below! Open to the HLS community.

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Join Wasserstein Fellow Caroline Sacerdote ‘15, as she shares her experience bringing constitutional challenges to restrictions on reproductive rights in state and federal courts across the country over the past decade. Caroline will discuss what it’s like to litigate reproductive rights during this period of tremendous upheaval, and how her practice has shifted since she joined the Center for Reproductive Rights in 2016—shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down abortion restrictions in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt—to litigating in a wholly different post-Dobbs, post-Roe world.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP. Open to the HLS community.

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Headshot of HLS Professor Emeritus Mark Tushnet

In the early 21st century, constitutionalism confronts numerous pressures and critiques. Some prominent critics are concerned that constitutionalism’s modern form may be unduly rigid in the face of changing social, economic, and environmental conditions. In their new book, Professors Mark Tushnet (HLS) and Bojan Bugarič (University of Sheffield) propose a “thin” idea of constitutionalism and suggest that we should scale back our expectations for what constitutionalism can achieve. Please join for a panel discussion about the book with Professors Tushnet, Doerfler and Visiting Professor Vlad Perju.

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Hear first-hand how to chart a non-traditional path that leads you to make history. Join OPIA for a community discussion with Wasserstein Fellow Erin D. Drake AB ‘14, Senior Advisor and Legal Counsel at the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, the Union for WNBA Players. Erin will discuss her own career path, labor negotiations, and the skills she relied on most to make change for WNBA players and the labor movement more broadly. Whether you’re interested in women’s sports, the labor movement, building consensus among diverse groups of people, navigating the media, coalition building, or developing and executing strategic campaigns and actions, this talk should leave you ready to give your skillset to a movement. Lunch provided. Please RSVP. Open to the HLS community.

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Cover image of book titled Supremacy by Nikolas Bowie and Daphna Renan

Join in for a panel discussion of the new book Supremacy: How Rule by the Court Replaced Government by the People with HLS authors Nikolas Bowie and Daphna Renan and discussant Professor Guy-Uriel Charles. Court. In a sweeping narrative of over 200 years of American history, the authors demonstrate that ​“judicial supremacy” was not written into the Constitution and has always been challenged as fundamentally at odds with it.

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Wondering if you can have a rewarding public interest career as an appellate lawyer? Think you might enjoy appellate practice, but are not actually sure what it entails? Join OPIA for a community discussion with Wasserstein Fellow Christine Monta, who has spent her career litigating civil rights and criminal justice issues in appellate courts from three different perspectives–as a D.C. public defender, a DOJ civil rights attorney, and a strategic impact litigator with the MacArthur Justice Center. Christine will discuss her path to appellate public interest practice and why she found it appealing (pun intended!); demystify the day-to-day life of an appellate lawyer; compare and contrast the roles she’s held across various metrics (office culture, connection to clients, scope of work and impact, autonomy vs. bureaucracy, etc.); and share insights she’s learned along the way.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below. Open only to the HLS community.

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Wasserstein Fellow CJ Sandley, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, will discuss the traditional direct service and impact litigation frameworks applied at many nonprofit legal organizations and why rejecting those frameworks can lead to more holistic, client- and movement-centered advocacy and more meaningful and sustainable systemic change. CJ will share case examples involving Alabama prisons, El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ supermax facility, and ICE detention centers.

Lunch provided. RSVP below. Open to the HLS community.

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Can we truly become experts in international human rights law if we limit ourselves to studying and working in the Global North? Are international human rights truly international if, as practitioners, we never open ourselves up to perspectives from the Global South? Join Wasserstein Fellow Elisa Vari for a discussion on the importance of studying and working outside of the US, Europe, and other Global Minority countries to strengthen our understanding of international human rights law and the meaning of these norms in practice. Elisa will discuss her experience moving to the Levant to practice international refugee law and later to East Africa, and the impact this has had on her work and worldview. She will discuss the value of learning from Global Majority colleagues and ensuring those views are included and amplified in the practice of IHRL globally, as well as the importance of avoiding harmful stereotyping and white saviorism as US-trained lawyers.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below. Open to the HLS community.