Faculty Lives in Public Service
Throughout the year, the Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono sponsors "Faculty Lives in Public Service," a lunch speaker series that offers students an opportunity to meet and listen to the stories of faculty who have held positions in government or non-profit organizations, participated in pro bono opportunities, or used their scholarship for public service. In 2010, we have heard from Professor James Coleman, Professor Lisa Griffin, and Professor Jim Cox. Their talks are featured below.
Professor Jim Cox
"Inside the Professor's Studio" Interview from March 22, 2010
Professor Lisa Griffin
"Inside the Professor's Studio" Interview from February 24, 2010
Professor James Coleman
"Inside the Professor's Studio" Interview from January 13, 2010
Professor Bill Brown
"Inside the Professor's Studio" Interview from February 1, 2011
Professor Kathy Bradley
"Inside the Professor's Studio" Interview from February 28, 2011
Professor Jedediah Purdy
"Inside the Professor's Studio" Interview from April 12, 2011
In the past, some of our featured faculty speakers have been:
- Professor Carolyn McAllaster on her inspiration for starting Duke's AIDS Legal Assistance Project and the valuable service it provides for a highly stigmatized, largely indigent segment of the population.
- Professor Jonathan Wiener on his public service work addressing climate change and other health and environmental risks. He helped organize the Americorps National Service program in 1993 and has held many other government and service positions.
- Professor Michael Tigar on his representation of controversial, high-profile criminal defendants and how law students can begin immediately to promote the ideals of the justice system. Past clients, many of whom Tigar represented as court-appointed counsel or pro bono, have included: Lynne Stewart (NY defense attorney representing "the Blind Shiek" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case and herself convicted of aiding a terrorist organization); Terry Nichols (Oklahoma Federal Building bombing defendant); Angela Davis (Black Panther Party activist once placed on FBI's Most Wanted list, now a professor); John Demjanjuk (convicted of Nazi war crimes in the U.S., deported, exonerated in Israel, returned to the U.S., sentence overturned, charged for a different set of Nazi war crimes, convicted, and deported to Ukraine); the Chicago Seven (acquitted of conspiring to incite rioting at the 1968 Democratic National Convention); H. Rap Brown (Black Panther Party activist - riot and arson charges - coined the phrase "Burn Baby Burn!"); John Connally (former Texas governor acquitted of accepting a $10,000 bribe to regulate dairy prices); and Kay Bailey Hutchison (current U.S. Senator, acquitted of records tampering as the Texas State Treasurer).
- Visiting Professor Denny Lewis, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell (New York) and past chair of its pro bono committee.
- Professor Sara Beale on her law reform efforts related to the federal government's role in criminal justice matters, including as the Reporter for the Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules, which drafts the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, as associate reporter for the Workload Subcommittee of the Federal Courts Study Committee (where much of her work focused on the Sentencing Guidelines) and as the reporter for a three branch federal-state working group convened by Attorney General Janet Reno to consider the principles that should govern the federalization of criminal law. Beale also served as a member of an American Bar Association task force studying the federalization of criminal law. She has argued before the Supreme Court on six occasions, representing the United States and as appointed counsel for an indigent defendant.
- Senior Lecturing Fellow Deborah Ross, a member of the N.C. House of Representatives and the Executive/Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina for over seven years.
Read more about the public service of these and other Duke Law faculty members on the faculty profiles section of the Duke Law website.
