Join ACS for an interesting career panel with several attorneys from various practice areas to learn about what life looks like as a progressive lawyer after law school. The panel will include a moderated discussion and Q&A with panelists Professor Ben Diamond, Peter Bayer, and Kristin Norse.
Indiana University - Redlining Revisited: How Past Maps Shape Modern Law
For much of the 20th century, the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps graded neighborhoods by perceived “risk,” embedding race-based assumptions into housing, lending, and land-use systems, in a practice known as redlining. Though formally outlawed, the legacy of redlining continues to influence modern legal frameworks from zoning and environmental regulation to credit access, school funding, and policing patterns.
Join ACS for a conversation on how historic redlining maps still shape the legal landscape today. Panelists Kathleen Bensberg, civil rights litigator, and Amy Nelson, Executive Director at Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana, will examine the enduring structural consequences of redlining and consider what lawyers can do to help communities break free from the lines drawn generations ago.
WashU Law: Community Service Event
Join ACS at Open Door Animal Sanctuary! We are partnering with the ODAS to walk dogs for our spring semester service day event!
WashU Law ACS x Marshall Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project
The ACS x Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project collaboration is a celebratory capstone to a full semester of constitutional learning, mentorship, and civic engagement. This event brings local high school students together with WashU Law students, alumni, judges, and community members for a moot court competition where students present oral arguments they have developed through the Marshall‑Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project.
Throughout the day, students will have the opportunity to practice advocacy in a real-world legal setting, receive feedback from legal professionals, and engage directly with members of the American Constitution Society community. More than a competition, this event is designed to demystify the legal profession and create meaningful pathways for inner-city students to envision themselves in higher education and the law.
As a culminating celebration of a semester spent teaching, learning, and building relationships, this collaboration reflects a shared commitment to constitutional literacy, educational equity, and expanding access to the legal system—while honoring the mission and legacy of the Marshall-Brennan program.
ACS Presents: A Conversation with Judge Carolyn N. Lerner
Carolyn N. Lerner will join UChicago ACS for a conversation covering her path to the bench and work on the Court of Federal Claims.
Carolyn N. Lerner serves as judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Judge Lerner was a partner at Heller, Huron, Chertkof, Lerner, Simon & Salzman, in Washington, D.C. While there, she served as Special Inspector for the D.C. Department of Corrections and as Special Master for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in a sexual harassment class action suit, and taught at the George Washington University Law School.
In 2011, Judge Lerner left private practice to serve as the head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a position to which she was unanimously confirmed and served until 2017. After leaving that position, she taught at Georgetown Law and served as the Chief Circuit Mediator for the D.C. Circuit until President Biden appointed her to the Court of Federal Claims.
Judge Lerner graduated from the University of Michigan's Honors College with highest honors in 1986. While at Michigan, she was a Truman Scholar and a James B. Angel Scholar. In 1989, she received her JD from NYU Law, where she was a Root-Tilden Public Interest Scholar. After law school, she clerked for Chief Judge Julian A. Cook of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
WashU Law: Building the Progressive Bar
Join WashU Law’s American Constitution Society for an evening of dinner and structured networking designed to strengthen the progressive legal community in St. Louis. This event will connect students with attorneys working in civil rights, public defense, immigrant justice, and public-interest litigation as well as other areas of law, fostering meaningful mentorship and long-term professional relationships.
The program will feature brief remarks from ACS leadership and alumni, followed by intentional, interest-based table conversations over dinner. Building the Progressive Bar reflects ACS’s commitment to cultivating a strong, inclusive, and justice-oriented bench and bar by supporting the next generation of progressive lawyers. Dinner provided. All WashU Law students welcome, as well as members of the ACS St. Louis Lawyers Chapter.