2020 Virtual National Convention

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Hon. Stacey Abrams

Founder

Fair Fight

Stacey Abrams is a New York Times bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, nonprofit CEO, and political leader. Abrams was the first black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a major party in the United States when she ran to become the governor of Georgia in 2018. She previously served for eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives, seven as Democratic Leader. Abrams launched Fair Fight to ensure every American has a voice in our election system through programs such as Fair Fight 2020, an initiative to fund and train voter protection teams in twenty battleground states. Over the course of her career, Abrams has founded multiple organizations devoted to voting rights, training and hiring young people of color, and tackling social issues at both the state and national levels. In 2019, she launched Fair Count to ensure accuracy in the 2020 Census and greater participation in civic engagement, and the Southern Economic Advancement Project, a public policy initiative to broaden economic power and build equity in the South. Abrams has written two books under her own name, Lead from the Outside and the forthcoming Our Time is Now, eight romantic suspense novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery, and is a contributor to Foreign Affairs Magazine. She is a recipient of the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award, a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for American Progress, among other affiliations. Abrams earned her B.A. from Spelman College, her M.P. Aff. from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and J.D. from Yale Law School. She is a member of the ACS Georgia Lawyer Chapter’s Board of Advisors.

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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Hon. Walter Dellinger

Lifetime Achievement Awardee

Walter Dellinger served as Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 1993 to 1996. He was acting Solicitor General for the 1996-97 Term of the U.S. Supreme Court. During that time, Dellinger argued nine cases before the Court, the most by any Solicitor General in more than 20 years. His arguments included cases dealing with physician assisted suicide, the line item veto, the Brady Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the constitutionality of remedial services for parochial school children. After serving in early 1993 in the White House as an advisor to the President on constitutional issues, Dellinger was nominated by the President to be Assistant Attorney General. He was confirmed by the Senate in October 1993 and served for three years. As head of OLC, he issued opinions on a wide variety of issues, including the president's authority to deploy U.S. forces in Haiti and Bosnia; whether the president may decline to enforce statutes he believes are unconstitutional; affirmative action; religious activity in public schools, and a major review of separation of powers questions. He provided extensive legal advice on national debt ceiling issues and on issues arising out of the shutdown of the federal government. Dellinger has published articles on constitutional issues in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Duke Law Journal, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The New Republic, and The London Times. He clerked for Justice Hugo L. Black of the U.S. Supreme Court and received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina and his J.D. from Yale University, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Dellinger is a member of the ACS Board of Advisors and a former member of the ACS Board of Directors.

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Hon. Keith Ellison

Attorney General

Minnesota

Keith Ellison was sworn in as Minnesota’s 30th attorney general on January 7, 2019. He is the first African American and the first Muslim American to be elected to statewide office in Minnesota. Ellison previously represented Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he championed consumer, worker, environmental, and civil- and human-rights protections. He served on the House Financial Services Committee, where he helped oversee the financial services industry, the housing industry, and Wall Street, among others. Among his legislative accomplishments are passing provisions to protect credit-card holders from abusive practices and protect the rights of renters and tenants. He also served as co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which he helped build to more than 100 members, and founded the Congressional Antitrust Caucus and the Congressional Consumer Justice Caucus. Before being elected to Congress, Ellison served in the Minnesota House of Representatives. Prior to entering elective office, he spent sixteen years as an attorney specializing in civil-rights and defense law, including as executive director of the Legal Rights Center. Ellison received his law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School. He serves as honorary co-chair of the ACS Minneapolis-St. Paul Lawyer Chapter’s Board of Advisors.

10 June

02:00 PM

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

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Tina Tchen

Progressive Champion Awardee

Tina Tchen oversees the strategic plans of TIME’S UP Now and the TIME’S UP Foundation to change culture, companies, and laws in order to make work safe, fair, and dignified for women of all kinds. In 2017, Tina co-founded the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund with Robbie Kaplan, Fatima Goss Graves, and Hilary Rosen. Since then, the Fund has connected thousands of people to legal or PR support for sexual harassment across dozens of different industries. A former assistant to President Barack Obama, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, and chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, Tchen has worked for decades to advance gender equality, particularly for working women. At the White House, Tchen spearheaded the first-ever White House Summit on Working Families and helped form the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. She was previously a lawyer specializing in workplace culture, advising companies on gender inequity, sexual harassment, and diversity. She has served on numerous strategic advisory boards for organizations, businesses, and nonprofits, including the United State of Women, which she continues to co-chair. Tchen graduated from Radcliffe College of Harvard University and received her J.D. degree from Northwestern University School of Law.

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Hon. Jocelyn Benson

Secretary of State

Michigan

Jocelyn Benson is Michigan’s 43rd Secretary of State, responsible for ensuring elections are secure and accessible. She is an expert on civil rights law, education law, and election law, and the author of State Secretaries of State: Guardians of the Democratic Process. Prior to her election, she served as CEO of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality. She previously served as dean of Wayne State University Law School in Detroit and as an associate professor and associate director of Wayne Law’s Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. She continues to serve as vice chair of the advisory board for the Levin Center at Wayne Law, which she founded with former U.S. Sen. Carl Levin. She chairs Michigan’s Task Force on Women in Sports and is co-founder and former president of Military Spouses of Michigan. She graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College and received her J.D. from Harvard Law School.

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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Kat Calvin

Executive Director

Spread the Vote + Project ID

Kat Calvin is a lawyer, activist, and social entrepreneur, who has built a national organization that helps Americans obtain the IDs they need for jobs, housing, and life and that also allows them to go to the polls. Calvin serves an advisor to Ragtag and DemCast, was a 2019 fellow at the Roddenberry Foundation, and sits on the board of the California Women’s List. Calvin is one of TIME Magazine’s 16 People and Groups Fighting for a More Equal America, 2018 Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business, and has been a Business Insider 30 Under 30, The Grio 100, and more. Calvin has been featured on PBS's To The Contrary, BET's Black History Month profiles, has been a guest commentator on Sirius XM, and has been featured in numerous print and digital outlets. Calvin earned her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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Ann Carlson

Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law and Faculty Co-Director, Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment

UCLA School of Law

Ann Carlson is a leading scholar of climate change and air pollution law and policy, the co-author of a top casebook on environmental law, with Dan Farber and William Boyd, and the co-editor, with Dallas Burtraw, of a book from Cambridge University Press, Lessons from the Clean Air Act: Building Durability and Flexibility into U.S. Climate and Energy Policy. She has published numerous articles in leading law reviews, including California, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, and UCLA. Carlson currently serves as the Speaker of the California Assembly’s representative to the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee. She is a frequent media commentator and blogs at Legal Planet. She is the recipient of the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, the Eby Award for the Art of Teaching, the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching, and is the 2017 University of California Sustainability Champion. Carlson is a magna cum laude graduate of both University of California, Santa Barbara and Harvard Law School.

10 June

02:00 PM

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

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Kristen Clarke

President and Executive Director

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

Kristen Clarke leads one of the country’s most important national civil rights organizations in the pursuit of equal justice for all. Under her leadership, the organization has been at the forefront of some of the nation’s biggest racial justice problems today. The Lawyers’ Committee seeks to promote fair housing and community development, economic justice, voting rights, equal educational opportunity, criminal justice, judicial diversity and more. Prior to joining the Lawyers’ Committee, Clarke served as the head of the Civil Rights Bureau for the New York State Attorney General’s Office, where she led broad civil rights enforcement on matters including criminal justice issues, education and housing discrimination, fair lending, barriers to reentry, voting rights, immigrants’ rights, gender inequality, disability rights, reproductive access and LGBT issues. She also spent several years at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. Clarke received her A.B. from Harvard University and her J.D. from Columbia Law School. She is a member of the ACS DC Lawyer Chapter.

10 June

02:00 PM

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

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Hon. Walter Dellinger

Douglas B. Maggs Professor Emeritus of Law; Duke University School of Law

Partner; O'Melveny & Myers LLP

Walter Dellinger served as Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 1993 to 1996. He was acting Solicitor General for the 1996-97 Term of the U.S. Supreme Court. During that time, Dellinger argued nine cases before the Court, the most by any Solicitor General in more than 20 years. His arguments included cases dealing with physician assisted suicide, the line item veto, the Brady Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the constitutionality of remedial services for parochial school children. After serving in early 1993 in the White House as an advisor to the President on constitutional issues, Dellinger was nominated by the President to be Assistant Attorney General. He was confirmed by the Senate in October 1993 and served for three years. As head of OLC, he issued opinions on a wide variety of issues, including the president's authority to deploy U.S. forces in Haiti and Bosnia; whether the president may decline to enforce statutes he believes are unconstitutional; affirmative action; religious activity in public schools, and a major review of separation of powers questions. He provided extensive legal advice on national debt ceiling issues and on issues arising out of the shutdown of the federal government. Dellinger has published articles on constitutional issues in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Duke Law Journal, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The New Republic, and The London Times. He clerked for Justice Hugo L. Black of the U.S. Supreme Court and received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina and his J.D. from Yale University, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Dellinger is a member of the ACS Board of Advisors and a former member of the ACS Board of Directors.

08 June

07:00 PM

Welcome and Presentation of ACS Awards

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Garrett Epps

Contributing Writer; The Atlantic

Professor of Law, Emeritus; University of Baltimore School of Law

Garrett Epps’s columns appear weekly in The Atlantic. Prior to his retirement, he taught courses in constitutional law, First Amendment, and fiction and non-fiction writing for law students at the University of Baltimore. He is the author of two novels and five books of legal journalism. His most recent book, American Justice 2014: Nine Clashing Visions on the Supreme Court was finalists for the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Book award. A former reporter for The Washington Post, he has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Washington Monthly, and The American Prospect. He received his B.A. from Harvard College, his M.A. from Hollins College, and his J.D. and LL.M. from Duke University. Epps is a member of the ACS Board of Directors and the ACS Board of Academic Advisors.

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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Hon. Russ Feingold

President

American Constitution Society

Russ Feingold served as a United States senator from Wisconsin from 1993 to 2011 and previously as a Wisconsin State senator. He subsequently served as U.S. special envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Feingold has taught at various law schools, including Stanford Law School, Yale Law School, Marquette University Law School, and Harvard Law School. He has also taught foreign policy to graduate and undergraduate students at Stanford University, University of Wisconsin, Yale University, Lawrence University, and American University. He is the author of While America Sleeps: A Wake-Up Call for the Post-9/11 Era; contributes regularly to various publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian; and appears frequently on MSNBC and CNN. Feingold holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Oxford (as a Rhodes Scholar), and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

08 June

07:00 PM

Welcome and Presentation of ACS Awards

10 June

02:00 PM

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

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Praveen Fernandes

Vice President for Public Engagement

Constitutional Accountability Center

Prior to his work at CAC, Praveen Fernandes was a principal at the Raben Group, where he advised non-profit clients on issues including LGBTQ equality, criminal justice, wealth inequality, digital equity, and judicial nominations. He previously served as senior counsel and advisor to the general counsel at the Office of Personnel Management, where he focused on LGBTQ issues, particularly the federal government’s implementation of the Supreme Court’s U.S. v. Windsor decision, as well as workforce diversity, parental leave, contracting, national security, and workplace discrimination. Fernandes has also worked at ACS, Justice at Stake, the Human Rights Campaign, Patton Boggs, Ropes & Gray, and the President’s Commission on Human Radiation Experiments. He began his career on Capitol Hill, where he served on Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s Labor Committee staff. Fernandes earned his A.B. from Brown University, his J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law, and his M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health.

11 June

02:00 PM

A Constitution for the 21st Century

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Joseph Fishkin

Marrs McLean Professor in Law

The University of Texas at Austin School of Law

Joseph Fishkin's research and teaching interests include employment discrimination law, constitutional law, election law, education law, fair housing law, poverty and inequality, distributive justice, property, and torts. He is particularly interested in questions of equality and equal opportunity at the intersection of law and political theory. He is the author of Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity and is working on The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution with Willy Forbath. Recent articles include, Taking Virtual Representation Seriously, which appeared in a symposium in the William & Mary Law Review, and an essay with coauthor David Pozen, Asymmetric Constitutional Hardball, in the Columbia Law Review. He blogs regularly at Balkinization. Fishkin was a Ruebhausen Fellow at Yale Law School and clerked for Chief Justice Margaret Marshall of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. He received a B.A. from Yale University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and a D. Phil. in Politics from Oxford University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He serves on the ACS Board of Academic Advisors.

11 June

02:00 PM

A Constitution for the 21st Century

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Michele Goodwin

Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Director, Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy,

University of California, Irvine School of Law

Michele Goodwin is a nationally recognized advocate for civil liberties and civil rights, who is at the forefront of health policy discourse. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute and an elected fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Hasting Center. Goodwin is a member of the ACLU Executive Committee and National Board. Goodwin was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and University of Virginia law schools and the Everett Fraser Professor at the University of Minnesota. Her commentaries appear in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Forbes, Salon.com, and other periodicals. Her scholarly works are published in the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Cornell Law Review, NYU Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Georgetown Law Journal, among others. Goodwin received her B.A. and LL.M. from the University of Wisconsin, her J.D. from Boston College Law School, and her post-doctorate from Yale University.

09 June

02:00 PM

The Pandemic and the Law: Legal Precedent Meets Unprecedented Times

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Alex Gulotta

Arizona State Director

All Voting is Local

Alex Gulotta brings more than thirty years of experience as a poverty law advocate and more than twenty years as a non-profit executive director. Prior to joining All Voting is Local, Gulotta served as the executive director of Bay Area Legal Aid (BayLegal) Under his tenure, BayLegal significantly increased its impact litigation and policy advocacy through the implementation of an impact support structure designed to enable every advocate in the program to participate in high-end impact advocacy. He had previously served as the executive director of the Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC), prior to which he practiced as a legal aid lawyer. Gulotta is a graduate of Marquette University and Marquette University School of Law.

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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Jessica Huseman

Reporter

ProPublica

Jessica Huseman covers voting rights and election administration for ProPublica. She is the lead reporter for ProPublica’s Electionland project, which helps hundreds of newsrooms across the U.S. cover ballot access issues in real time. The project has won awards from the Online News Association, the Global Editors Network and the Society for Professional Journalists. Prior to covering elections, she covered health and education issues, especially those impacting children. A freelance piece she co-authored for ProPublica on nursing regulations sparked a bill in the New York Legislature that would provide additional oversight for nurses who have committed crimes or harmed patients. Prior to becoming a journalist, Huseman was a high school history teacher and debate coach in Newark, New Jersey. She graduated with honors from the Stabile Program in Investigative Journalism at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she was the recipient of the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship and the Fred M. Hechinger Award for Distinguished Education Reporting.

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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Marcia Johnson-Blanco

Co-Director of Voting Rights Project

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

Marcia Johnson-Blanco manages the Voting Rights Project’s programmatic and advocacy portfolios, which include leading Election Protection, the nation’s largest non-partisan voter protection program, overseeing the work of the National Commission on Voting Rights, promoting election reform, ensuring minority participation in the redistricting process and ensuring that those with felony convictions regain their right to vote. She also coordinates the Lawyer’s Committee’s international human rights initiatives, working on shadow reports discussing U.S. compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination on all forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and presenting before the reviewing bodies during treaty reviews in Geneva Switzerland. Additionally, she serves as the co-chair of the CERD taskforce of the U.S. Human Rights Network. Johnson-Blanco has taught as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. She received B.S. from Georgetown University and her J.D. from Villanova University School of Law.

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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Peter Karanjia

Chair

ACS Board of Directors

Peter Karanjia is a partner at DLA Piper LLP and chairs the firm’s Administrative Law Appellate Practice. Karanjia previously served as deputy general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission and as special counsel to the solicitor general of New York. He has represented amici before the U.S. Supreme Court in challenges to the Trump administration’s rescission of the DACA program (on behalf of United We Dream and 50 other organizations) and the “Travel Ban” executive orders (on behalf of more than 130 Members of Congress). He represented U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal as amici in litigation defending fair-share union fees against First Amendment challenge. Karanjia also has represented media organizations and press associations in cases raising novel First Amendment issues in connection with digital media. Karanjia holds law degrees from Harvard Law School, where he studied as a John F. Kennedy Scholar, and the University of Oxford, from which he graduated with highest honors.

08 June

07:00 PM

Welcome and Presentation of ACS Awards

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Pamela Karlan

Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law, Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic

Stanford Law School

Pam Karlan is one of the nation’s leading experts on voting and the political process. Before joining the Stanford faculty, she was a professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law and served as an assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, as a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission, and as deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Karlan is the co-author of leading casebooks on constitutional law, constitutional litigation, and the law of democracy, numerous scholarly articles, and an ACS-sponsored monograph, Keeping Faith with the Constitution. She clerked for Justice Harry Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Hon. Abraham Sofaer of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Karlan received her B.A. and M.A. from Yale University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. She is a member and former chair of the ACS Board of Directors and a member of the ACS Board of Academic Advisors.

11 June

02:00 PM

A Constitution for the 21st Century

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Ron Klain

Executive Vice President and General Counsel

Revolution

Ron Klain has devoted many years to public service, most recently as White House Ebola response coordinator. He was chief of staff to Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore, chief of staff and counselor to Attorney General Janet Reno, staff director of the Senate Democratic Leadership Committee, chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and associate counsel to President Clinton in charge of judicial selection. He played a role in the selection or confirmation of eight Supreme Court justices. Klain is a contributing columnist for The Washington Post and serves as a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. He clerked for Justice Byron White of the U.S. Supreme Court. Klain graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Klain serves on the ACS Board of Advisors.

09 June

02:00 PM

The Pandemic and the Law: Legal Precedent Meets Unprecedented Times

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Natalie Landreth

Senior Attorney

Native American Rights Fund

Natalie Landreth’s practice covers federal Indian law and election law issues, including Voting Rights Act, constitutional voter protections, tribal jurisdiction, the Indian Child Welfare Act, subsistence hunting and fishing, and cultural resource protection. She is a member of the Litigation Management Committee. Landreth has been instrumental in establishing key voter protections in Alaska through two significant cases, Nick v. Bethel and Toyukak v. Treadwell. She testified in Congress in support of the renewal of the Voting Rights Act in 2006. Landreth serves on the Alaska Bar Association Ethics Committee, the Child-In-Need-of-Aid Court Rules Committee, and the Alaska Court Improvement Committee (ICWA Subcommittee). She clerked for Chief Justice Dana Fabe of the Alaska Supreme Court. She is a graduate of Harvard University, magna cum laude, and Harvard Law School. Landreth is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma (Imatobby and Colbert families).

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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Tracey Meares

Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law and Founding Director of The Justice Collaboratory

Yale Law School

Tracey Meares is a nationally recognized expert on policing in urban communities. Her research focuses on understanding how members of the public think about their relationships with legal authorities such as police, prosecutors and judges. She previously served as Max Pam Professor and director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago Law School. She was the first African American woman to be granted tenure at both law schools. Meares has worked extensively with the federal government, having served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Law and Justice, a National Research Council standing committee; the U.S. Department of Justice’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing; and the Office of Justice Programs’ Science Advisory Board. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Meares earned a B.S. in general engineering from the University of Illinois and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

09 June

02:00 PM

The Pandemic and the Law: Legal Precedent Meets Unprecedented Times

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Melissa Murray

Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law, Faculty Director, Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network

NYU School of Law

Melissa Murray’s research focuses on the legal regulation of sex and sexuality and encompasses such topics as marriage and its alternatives, the marriage equality debate, the legal recognition of caregiving, and reproductive rights and justice. Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Murray was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where she also served as interim dean. She co-authored Cases on Reproductive Rights and Justice, the first legal casebook on reproductive rights and justice. Her publications have appeared in the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, among others. Murray clerked for the Hon. Sonia Sotomayor, then of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Hon. Stefan Underhill of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Yale Law School, and a member of the ACS Board of Directors and ACS Board of Academic Advisors.

11 June

02:00 PM

A Constitution for the 21st Century

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K. Sabeel Rahman

President; Demos

Associate Professor of Law; Brooklyn Law School

Sabeel Rahman’s research and advocacy focus on democracy, economic inequality, exclusion, and power. At Brooklyn Law School, he teaches constitutional law, administrative law, and courses on law and inequality. Rahman previously served as a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and at New America; as a special advisor on strategies for inclusive economic development in New York City; as a public member of the New York City Rent Guidelines Board; and as the design director for the Gettysburg Project, an initiative working with organizers, academics, and funders to develop new strategies for civic engagement and building civic capacity. He is the author of two books, Democracy Against Domination and Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis, with Hollie Russon Gilman. His writings have appeared in many leading publications, among them The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Democracy Journal, and The American Prospect. He earned his A.B., summa cum laude, his Ph.D. and his J.D. from Harvard University. He also has degrees in Economics and Sociolegal Studies from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

10 June

02:00 PM

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

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Daniel Rodriguez

Harold Washington Professor of Law

Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Daniel Rodriguez’s principal academic work is in the areas of administrative law, local government law, statutory interpretation, federal and state constitutional law, and the law-business-technology interface. He has previously served as dean of the Pritzker School of Law; as Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law at the University of Texas-Austin; as a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy; as dean and Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law; and, as a professor of law at University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Rodriguez was the 2014 president of the Association of American Law Schools and currently serves as chair of the council of the American Bar Association Center for Innovation and a council member of the American Law Institute. He received his undergraduate degree from California State University of Long Beach and his law degree, with honors, from Harvard Law School.

09 June

02:00 PM

The Pandemic and the Law: Legal Precedent Meets Unprecedented Times

Back

Thomas Saenz

President and General Counsel

MALDEF

Thomas Saenz leads MALDEF in pursuing litigation, policy advocacy, and community education to promote the civil rights of all Latinos living in the United States in the areas of education, employment, immigrants’ rights, and voting rights. Saenz rejoined MALDEF in August 2009, after four years on Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's executive team. He previously spent twelve years at MALDEF practicing civil rights law, including four years as litigation director. He has served as lead counsel for MALDEF in numerous cases, including challenges to California Proposition 187, which sought to deny public benefits to undocumented immigrants but was ruled unconstitutional; California Proposition 227, an English-only education initiative; and California congressional redistricting. In 2016, Saenz argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Texas, representing intervenors defending Obama administration deferred action initiatives. He clerked for two federal judges. Saenz graduated from Yale College and Yale Law School.

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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David Strauss

Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law, Faculty Director of the Jenner & Block Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic

University of Chicago Law School

David Strauss researches and teaches in the areas of constitutional law, federal jurisdiction, elements of the law, and administrative law. He recently co-authored a book, Democracy and Equality: The Enduring Constitutional Vision of the Warren Court, with Geoffrey Stone, and has published many scholarly articles, principally on subjects in constitutional law. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a co-editor of the Supreme Court Review, and he has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Georgetown. He has served as special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as an assistant to the solicitor general of the United States. He has argued eighteen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Strauss earned his A.B. from Harvard College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a member of the ACS Board of Advisors and ACS Board of Academic Advisors.

11 June

02:00 PM

A Constitution for the 21st Century

Back

Ria Tabacco Mar

Director, Women's Rights Project

ACLU

Ria Tabacco Mar oversees the ACLU’s women’s rights litigation. She previously served as a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project, where she was part of teams litigating two cases now before the Supreme Court in which the Trump administration has argued it should be legal to fire someone because they are LGBTQ. She also led the ACLU’s team in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Tabacco Mar is a frequent commentator on gender justice issues in both print and television outlets. She served as assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. and as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. Tabacco Mar clerked for the Hon. Julia Smith Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the Hon. Victor Marrero of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She graduated from Harvard College and NYU School of Law.

10 June

02:00 PM

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

Back

Tina Tchen

President and CEO

TIME'S UP Now and TIME'S UP Foundation

Tina Tchen oversees the strategic plans of TIME’S UP Now and the TIME’S UP Foundation to change culture, companies, and laws in order to make work safe, fair, and dignified for women of all kinds. In 2017, Tina co-founded the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund with Robbie Kaplan, Fatima Goss Graves, and Hilary Rosen. Since then, the Fund has connected thousands of people to legal or PR support for sexual harassment across dozens of different industries. A former assistant to President Barack Obama, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, and chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, Tchen has worked for decades to advance gender equality, particularly for working women. At the White House, Tchen spearheaded the first-ever White House Summit on Working Families and helped form the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. She was previously a lawyer specializing in workplace culture, advising companies on gender inequity, sexual harassment, and diversity. She has served on numerous strategic advisory boards for organizations, businesses, and nonprofits, including the United State of Women, which she continues to co-chair. Tchen graduated from Radcliffe College of Harvard University and received her J.D. degree from Northwestern University School of Law.

08 June

07:00 PM

Welcome and Presentation of ACS Awards

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Franita Tolson

Vice Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs, and Professor of Law

USC Gould School of Law

Franita Tolson’s scholarship and teaching focus on the areas of election law, constitutional law, legal history and employment discrimination. She has written on a wide range of topics including partisan gerrymandering, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Elections Clause, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Her forthcoming book, In Congress We Trust?: The Evolution of Federal Voting Rights Enforcement from the Founding to the Present, will be published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. Prior to joining USC, Tolson was the Betty T. Ferguson Professor of Voting Rights at Florida State University College of Law. She clerked for the Hon. Ann Claire Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the Hon. Ruben Castillo of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Tolson received her B.A./B.S. from Truman State University and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. She is a member of the ACS Board of Directors and ACS Board of Academic Advisors.

12 June

02:00 PM

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

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Stephen Vladeck

A. Dalton Cross Professor in Law

The University of Texas at Austin School of Law

Stephen Vladeck is a nationally recognized expert on the role of the federal courts in the war on terrorism. He has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and his scholarship and popular writings have appeared in an array of publications. He is CNN's Supreme Court analyst, a co-author of leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks, and an elected member of the American Law Institute. He serves as a senior editor of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy, co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, a senior contributor to Lawfare, and co-host of the popular "National Security Law Podcast." Vladeck clerked for the Hon. Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Hon. Rosemary Barkett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He earned his B.A. from Amherst College and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He is a member of the ACS Board of Academic Advisors.

09 June

02:00 PM

Schedule

Welcome and Presentation of ACS Awards

The Pandemic and the Law: Legal Precedent Meets Unprecedented Times

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

Networking & Practice Group Dinners

A Constitution for the 21st Century

Members of Color Mixer

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

Optional Social Activities

Featuring

Speakers

Sponsors

Hon. Stacey Abrams

12 June

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

Hon. Walter Dellinger

Hon. Keith Ellison

10 June

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

Tina Tchen

Hon. Jocelyn Benson

12 June

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

Kat Calvin

12 June

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

Ann Carlson

10 June

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

Kristen Clarke

10 June

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

Hon. Walter Dellinger

08 June

Welcome and Presentation of ACS Awards

Garrett Epps

12 June

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

Hon. Russ Feingold

08 June

Welcome and Presentation of ACS Awards

10 June

Defining a Progressive Agenda for 2021 and Beyond, with Introductory Remarks by Keith Ellison

Praveen Fernandes

11 June

A Constitution for the 21st Century

Joseph Fishkin

11 June

A Constitution for the 21st Century

Michele Goodwin

09 June

The Pandemic and the Law: Legal Precedent Meets Unprecedented Times

Alex Gulotta

12 June

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

Jessica Huseman

12 June

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

Marcia Johnson-Blanco

12 June

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

Peter Karanjia

08 June

Welcome and Presentation of ACS Awards

Pamela Karlan

11 June

A Constitution for the 21st Century

Ron Klain

09 June

The Pandemic and the Law: Legal Precedent Meets Unprecedented Times

Natalie Landreth

12 June

How to Protect the Health of our Democracy, with Featured Remarks by Stacey Abrams

Tracey Meares

09 June

The Pandemic and the Law: Legal Precedent Meets Unprecedented Times

Melissa Murray

11 June

A Constitution for the 21st Century

K. Sabeel Rahman