Inspiring Paths Speaker Series

Fall 2007

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Inspiring Paths Series - Defending the Constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act
12:20 PM - 1:20 PM
138 Hutchins Hall

Join MLS 2004 grad Dan Zibel (Wilmer Hale representing the Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches and the Austin Branch of the NAACP) as he talks about MUD v. Gonzales and his role in the case.  The plaintiff's are challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the VRA.  Civil rights organizations defending Latino voters in Texas who joined as private defendants filed a brief seeking a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that Congress has the constitutional authority needed to reauthorize Section 5 of the VRA.  Oral arguments are scheduled for September 17, 2007.  Wilmer Hale is sponsoring lunch for this discussion.

Winter 2007

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Benny Widyono - Former UN Special Adviser (audio file)

Please join the OPS in welcoming Benny Widyono, Former Special Adviser to the UN Ambassador of Indonesia and Cambodia.  Anyone entertaining the possibility of a career in international economic development or international diplomacy will get a lot of useful insight into those worlds. 

Fall 2006

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Scott Garland '95, Senior Counsel, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the United States Department of Justice (audio file)

Please join OPS as we welcome Scott Garland '95, Senior Counsel, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the United States Department of Justice. Scott will discuss his position working on cyber law issues and the path which led to his current job. He will also remind students to apply for the DOJ Honors Program -- the deadline being September 18th.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Michael Posner, President, Human Rights First  (audio file)

Please join the Office of Public Service in welcoming Michael Posner President of Human Rights First (HRF). HRF is a leading human rights advocacy organization which works in the United States and abroad to create a secure and humane world, advancing justice, human dignity, and respect for the rule of law. Mr. Posner will discuss the work of HRF, his career paths and ways in which Michigan Law students can work with HRF on cases. This event is co-sponsored by OPIS and SNARL.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Michael Foreman, Deputy Director of Legal Programs and Director of the Employment Discrimination Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington DC (audio file)

Michael Foreman, Deputy Director of Legal Programs and Director of the Employment Discrimination Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LC) in Washington, DC will speak about cases being currently undertaken by the LC and opportunities to work with them through a new arrangement between the Law School and the LC.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Patty Skuster '04, MPP JD, Policy Associate, IPAS, International Women's Rights and Reproductive Rights Issues (audio file)

Please join the Office of Public Service as we welcome, Patty Skuster '04, MPP JD. Patty is a Policy Associate with Ipas, where she works on U.S., international and global policy advocacy (with a focus on Africa). Ipas is an international non-profit organization that works to increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights and to reduce deaths and injuries of women from unsafe abortion. Prior to coming to Ipas, Patty worked in the office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, where she was a Women's Research and Education Institute Congressional Fellow focused on reproductive rights and judicial nominations.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Alex Joel, JD ‘87, Civil Liberties Protection Officer of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Washington DC  (audio file)

Alex Joel, Civil Liberties Protection Officer of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will speak about his current responsibilities, reporting directly to John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, as well as his career path. 

Winter 2006

Friday, April 7, 2006

The Path to Asylum & Immigration Work (audio file)

Sarah Sohn, '04,
New Voices Legal Fellow at Immigration Equality

Sarah Sohn is a New Voices Legal Fellow at Immigration Equality, a non-profit organization that works to end discrimination in US immigration law against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and HIV-positive immigrants.  As the coordinator of the HIV Detention Project, Ms. Sohn represents LGBT and HIV-positive detainees in removal proceedings and is in the process of preparing a report on HIV/AIDS and detention conditions, to be used as an educational tool for improving detainees' access to appropriate medical treatment and to encourage stricter enforcement of HIV confidentiality laws.

Megan Mack, '99, Associate Director of the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration

Megan H. Mack is Associate Director of the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration. The Commission on Immigration advocates for law and governmental practice to ensure fair treatment and full due process rights for immigrants and refugees; provides continuing education on developments in immigration law to the legal community and the public; and develops and assists in pro bono programs. Ms. Mack monitors and analyzes federal legislation, litigation, and regulatory processes. She oversees the ABA Detention Standards Implementation Initiative, organizing delegations of volunteer attorneys to detention facilities across the United States to ensure effective implementation of the Department of Homeland Security detention standards. Ms Mack was previously Supervisor of Legal Services at Hogar Hispano, Catholic Charities Diocese of Arlington. Before that she worked as a litigation associate at Foley Hoag LLP in Boston, Massachusetts. Megan served as a law clerk to Judge Fred I. Parker on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1999 to 2000. In addition to her law degree, she holds an M.A. in Art History from the University of Chicago and an A.B. from Brown University.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

The Path from Firm to Non-Profit (audio file)

Visiting Professor Dana Roach, '99

Dana Roach is a visiting clinical assistant professor at the Law School's Legal Assistance for Urban Communities Clinic (LAUC). Prior to joining the LAUC, she served as a regional attorney at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in San Francisco where she represented TNC on land conservation transactions and general legal matters. Professor Roach's other legal experience includes serving as an associate attorney at Morrison & Foerster LLP in their commercial real estate group in San Francisco, California and as an associate attorney at Miller, Starr & Regalia in their real estate and transactional group in Walnut Creek, California.

Amy Harwell Sankaran, '01

Amy Harwell Sankaran joined the Michigan Law School Admissions Office in July 2005. Prior to that, Amy was a law clerk to the Honorable Arthur J. Tarnow of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, a litigation associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP in Washington, D.C., and, most recently, a staff attorney for the Children's Law Center in Washington, D.C., representing foster parents and relative caretakers who wanted to adopt children from the abuse and neglect system. Amy received her J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School.

Fall 2005

Thursday, November 17, 2005
Angana Shah, '93
USAID, the International Judicial Relations Committee
(audio file)
 

Angana Shah is a 1993 University of Michigan Law School graduate who is currently working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  After graduating from law school, Ms. Shah spent a year on a fellowship in India before returning to clerk for a bankruptcy judge in Los Angeles.  She spent four years after that working in large law firms, before volunteering for the American Bar Association's CEELI program in Bulgaria.  From there she moved on to consult with the World Bank and USAID on commercial law reform issues, including bankruptcy, creditors' rights, privatization, and judicial reform in developing countries, until she came to her current position at USAID as a Democracy and Governance Fellow in the Rule of Law Division.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

After the Flood:
Justice in Louisiana in the Wake of Katrina

G. Ben Cohen, '96
Capital Appeals Project , Louisiana

G. Ben Cohen has served as Staff Director with the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans, Louisiana since 2001. Mr. Cohen was instrumental in the creation of the Capital Appeals Project and with the recruiting and supervising of the student-internship and new lawyer programs. He has successfully argued before the Louisiana Supreme Court and was instrumental in the court overturning convictions and/or death sentences in six different Louisiana capital cases. Mr. Cohen  served as counsel to the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center initiating civil rights litigation addressing racism in the criminal justice system, and worked after law school a researcher for the Southern Center for Human Rights. He served as a law clerk to the Committee on HIV/AIDS of the South Africa Law Commission. Mr. Cohen was elected as Orleans Representative to the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and was appointed to the Louisiana Bar Association Committee on Post-Conviction Relief and the Death Penalty as well as the American Bar Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project.

Hilary Taylor, '99
Public Defender, Jefferson & Orleans Parishes, Louisiana

Hilary Taylor graduated from Yale in 1994, worked as a teacher in a prison outside New Orleans and then was a teacher in the New Orleans Public Schools.  She was a Darrow scholar at Michigan and graduated in 1999.  Ms. Taylor worked for a year at Howard, Rice in San Francisco and then worked at a public defender's office in California for three years.  She moved to New Orleans and has two public defender contracts.  Ms. Taylor was a public defender in Jefferson Parish where she handled everything from marijuana to first degree murder.  She also does capital murder cases in Orleans Parish.  She has independently tried about 100 jury trials and participated in about five capital trials. 

Winter 2005

 Thursday, March 24, 2005

The Path to Government Law

Barbara Grewe, '85
Associate General Counsel, Government Accountability Office
(audio file)

Barbara's talk centers on her time at GAO, as Senior Counsel for Special Projects on the 9/11 Commission, as Special Investigative Counsel for the Justice Department's Inspector General as as a United States Attorney.