Please join us for the June briefing from the ACS Programs Team, where an ACS staff member will share programming thoughts and ideas on a specific topic and answer questions you may have. These meetings are designed for ACS student and lawyer chapter leaders, and specifically leaders who work on developing a chapter's programming. This month's topic is the death penalty.

ACS is honored to host Paul M. Smith, Vice President of Litigation & Strategy at the Campaign Legal Center, to celebrate Pride Month. Mr. Smith is a former ACS Board Member, a former co-chair of Lambda Legal and was the attorney for the petitioners in the landmark case Lawrence v. Texas. The National Law Journal named Smith one of the "Decade's Most Influential Lawyers;” he has been frequently named to the DC Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, and 500 Leading Lawyers in America lists. His numerous awards include Legal Aid Society of DC’s Servant of Justice Award and the DC Bar’s Thurgood Marshall Award.

Join the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, the Chicago Council of Lawyers, and the ACS Chicago Lawyer Chapter for an annual forum on Chicago police accountability. At this event panelists will discuss transparency and community oversight of the Chicago police, implications of the recent safe-t-act, and improvements for the future focused on racial equity and fairness.

Featuring:

Nusrat Jahan Choudhury, Robert Pascal Legal Director, ACLU of Illinois

Jamie Kalven, Founder and Director, Invisible Institute

Andrea Kersten, Interim Chief Administrator, Civilian Office of Police Accountability

Deborah Witzburg, Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety, Chicago Office of the Inspector General

Moderated by:

Sharon Fairley, Professor from Practice, University of Chicago Law School

1.25 hours of Illinois CLE Credit has been approved for this event.

To attend this event, please register here.

Please join the Oberlin Club of Washington, D.C. and the ACS DC Lawyer Chapter for a conversation on the importance of the federal judiciary and how President Joe Biden is selecting new judicial nominees. 

Featuring:

Nan Aron, President, Alliance for Justice

Moderated by:

 

Ted Gest, President, Criminal Justice Journalist

To attend this event, please register here.

Join the ACS Austin Lawyer Chapter for the 2021 Central Texas Juneteenth Parade. The Chapter will be marching in the parade and passing out ACS Pocket Constitutions. Gather at 9 a.m. Parade begins at 10 a.m. at the intersection of 14th and Comal.

Juneteenth, also known as "Freedom Day" or "Emancipation Day," commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas. While President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery on January 1, 1863, the Proclamation had little effect in the state of Texas. On June 19, 1865, a Union Army General read General Orders No. 3 to the people of Galveston, Texas.

"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.”

Interested in serving as a federal public defender? Come and join the ACS Florida, At-Large, Bay Area, Delaware, and Los Angeles Lawyer Chapters and the Widener University Delaware Law School ACS Student Chapter for a chance to hear from our panel of defenders as they discuss their career paths and offer advice on how to position yourself to join a Federal Public Defender office.

Featuring:

Adeel Bashir, Assistant Federal Public Defender and Appeals Supervisor, Federal Defender of the Middle District of Florida

Sowmya Bharathi, Supervisory Assistant Federal Public Defender, Federal Public Defender Office of the Southern District of Florida

Alec Hall, Supervisory Assistant Federal Public Defender, Federal Defender of Middle District of Florida

Moderated by:

Connor Porzig, ACS Student Chapter President, Western Michigan University Cooley Law School