I Wish I'd Known

Vol. 41 No. 1

By Morris Dees

Morris Dees is co-founder and chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama. Dees and SPLC have long been recognized for their record of civil trial victories against the Ku Klux Klan, White Aryan Resistance, and other such organizations.

At this year’s Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association, Dees received the ABA Medal—the association’s highest honor—to recognize his exceptionally distinguished service to the cause of American jurisprudence. In 2006, the law firm of Skadden Arps partnered with Dees’s alma mater, the University of Alabama School of Law, to create an award in his honor, given to lawyers who work for the public good.

You can learn more about Dees in A Lawyer’s Journey: The Morris Dees Story (ABA Biography Series; written by Dees with Steve Fiffer).