Message from the Chairs
We are thrilled to serve as cochairs of the Section’s Civil Rights Litigation Committee for the 2017-2018 bar year and continue the incredible work that the Committee has accomplished over the last year. We especially want to thank Carmen Caruso for his dedication to the Committee as a cochair and time spent planning and spearheading publications, Sound Advice clips and roundtable discussions. Carmen, your experience in Chicago, commitment to civil rights, and creative ideas—especially as they relate to economic justice—will inform and encourage our future work.
Dalton Courson will stay on as a Committee cochair for the 2017-2018 bar year, to continue his leadership and offer guidance to the new cochairs.
Our new cochairs, Andrew and Jasmyn, both offer backgrounds in civil rights litigation, which we hope will further the Committee’s work. Andrew, a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, has committed a significant portion of his practice to racial justice, children’s’ rights, housing, and employment discrimination. He has reformed the Pinebush School District’s treatment of Anti-Semitic bullying, obtained $6 million for a man who spent over twenty years in prison for a murder he did not committee, required the Cooper Union to pursue a return to free tuition, and reformed the bylaws of a former pro-Nazi residential community on Long Island.
Jasmyn, a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, specializes in voting rights litigation. She spent over two years with the Advancement Project in Washington, D.C. helping local and state community organizations to litigate and oppose voting legislation that had a disproportionate burden on minorities, and ultimately fight for greater access to the ballot box. She served as counsel to the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP in the historic and recent voting rights case, North Carolina NAACP v. McCrory (M.D.N.C.).
Now, more than ever, we must provide the resources, tools, and spaces to discuss pressing civil rights issues with our members. As law students, academics, and litigators, we all have an important role to play in the legal battles addressing religious discrimination, religious freedom legislation, police misconduct, public education, First Amendment rights, and so much more. We look forward to working with you to make this a productive and meaningful bar year for the Section’s Civil Rights Litigation Committee.
Dalton Courson
Andrew Wilson
Jasmyn Richardson
Cochairs, Civil Rights Litigation Committee