The School of Law’s Clinical Legal Education Program will host its 10th annual “Access to Equal Justice Colloquium: Challenging Structural Impediments to Substantive Justice” Friday, March 19, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall.
The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Register online at law.wustl.edu/accessequaljustice/accessform.asp.
The goal of the colloquium is to provide a forum for university faculty and students, lawyers, judges, community leaders and government officials to examine barriers to both access to counsel and more expansive notions of justice that reflect the needs, circumstances and wishes of its constituents.
The conference begins at 9 a.m. with a keynote address by Martin F. Guggenheim, JD, the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law at New York University, on “The Failed Promise of Gideon: The Need for a New Theory on the Right to Counsel.”
One of the nation’s foremost experts on children’s rights and family law, Guggenheim has been an active litigator in the area of children and the law and has argued leading cases on juvenile delinquency and the termination of parental rights in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The morning sessions will be devoted to exploring a new theory for right to counsel in a variety of civil matters. Afternoon sessions will address school-to-prison pipeline issues and issues of environmental justice in Herculaneum, Mo.
Participants also can attend breakout sessions on criminal nonsupport courts; judicial and political access of religious organizations; or Guardian ad litem representation of youth aging out of foster care.
“We hope that this forum will help identify new tools for understanding and overcoming barriers to the equal administration of and access to justice,” says Annette R. Appell, JD, associate dean of clinical affairs and professor of law, “and that it will help devise approaches that will be more responsive to the recipients of state-sponsored justice and social services.”
The colloquium has been approved for 7.8 Missouri Continuing Legal Education credits (including 4 ethics credits) and 7.8 Guardian ad litem CLE credits.
For more information, visit law.wustl.edu/accessequaljustice/ or contact Katie Herr, clinic operations manager at the law school, at (314) 935-7238 or at kmherr@wustl.edu.