April 7-9, Washington DC. Numerous speakers and panelists will focus on issues of racial fairness, the access to justice movement and the role of the legal profession and clinical legal education in addressing poverty and inequality.

::::::::

Please join us on April 7-9, 2006 for an important Symposium entitled Strategies
for Addressing Poverty and Inequality, at the UDC Auditorium, UDC David A.
Clarke School of Law, 4200 Connecticut Ave., NW.

Numerous speakers and panelists will focus on issues of racial fairness, the
access to justice movement and the role of the legal profession and clinical
legal education in addressing poverty and inequality. Substantive issues will
include affordable housing, economic justice and making public systems work for
children. (See below for details)

Featured speakers will include JoAnn Wallace, Executive Director of the National
Legal Aid and Defender Association; Barbara Arnwine, Executive Director of the
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights; Ted Shaw, Director General of the NAACP
LDF; Wade Henderson Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights; Prof. Peter Edelman of Georgetown Law Center and Chair of the D.C.
Access to Justice Commission; our own Prof. Edgar S. Cahn; and Helaine Barnett,
President of the Legal Services Corporation.

We will continue to provide more detail, via e-mail, as it becomes available.
To join the e-mail list, send a note to JLibertelli@udc.edu.

This event is free of charge and open to the public. Feel free to forward this
announcement.

ACCREDITATION CELEBRATION:

On Friday evening, after the Symposium sessions, we will celebrate the full
accreditation of our law school. As Edgar Cahn has quipped, the accreditation
of this law school represents victory for "the good guys" in what has been,
taking the long view, our own modern "Thirty Years War." Victories of this
magnitude don't come often. We hope you will come share this one with us!
Again, this event is open to the public and free of charge.

SYMPOSIUM FRIDAY SCHEDULE

8:30 - 9:00 Refreshments, meet and greet

9:00 - 9:30 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: WADE HENDERSON, Executive Director, Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights and Joseph L. Rauh Professor of Public Interest Law,
UDC David A. Clarke School of Law

9:45 - 12:30 AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROGRAM

9:45 - 10:30 Panel 1: The National Crisis in Affordable Housing

10:45 - 11:45 Panel 2: Housing Preservation Strategies

12:00 - 12:45 Panel 3: Housing Production Strategies

1:00 - 2:00 LUNCH SPEAKERS: BARBARA ARNWINE, Executive Director of the
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, HELAINE BARNETT, President of the Legal
Services Corporation, and JOANN WALLACE, Executive Director of the National
Legal Aid and Defender Association

2:15 - 5:15 ACCESS TO JUSTICE PROGRAM

2:15 - 3:30 Panel 1: New Directions for Lawyers in Race & Poverty Issues:
The Nat'l View

3:45 - 5:305 Panel 2: New Directions for Lawyers in Race & Poverty Issues:
The Local View

6:00 14th ANNUAL JOSEPH RAUH LECTURE - UDC Auditorium

7:00 ACCREDITATION CELEBRATION - UDC Auditorium Lobby
Co-Hosted by: U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton; Hon. Anthony A. Williams, Mayor
District of Columbia; Mrs. David A. (Carole) Clarke; D.C. Councilmembers: Hon.
Linda W. Cropp, Chair; Hon. Jack Evans, Ward Two, Chair Pro Tempore; Hon. Carol
Schwartz, At Large; Hon. Phil Mendelson, At Large; Hon. David Catania, At Large;
Hon. Kwame Brown, At Large; Hon. Jim Graham, Ward One; Hon. Kathleen Patterson,
Ward Three; Hon. Adrian Fenty, Ward Four; Hon. Vincent Orange, Ward Five; Hon.
Sharon Ambrose, Ward Six; Hon. Vincent C. Gray, Ward Seven; Hon. Marion Barry,
Ward Eight; and John Cruden, President, D.C. Bar.

SYMPOSIUM SATURDAY SCHEDULE

8:30 - 9:00 Refreshments

9:00 - 9:30 OPENING SPEAKER - TOM PEREZ, Montgomery County Council
(invited)

9:45 - 12:15 ECONOMIC JUSTICE PROGRAM

9:45 - 10:45 Panel 1: The National Economic (In) Justice Picture

11:00 - 12:15 Panel 2: The Economic Justice Battle in DC

12:30 - 1:30 LUNCH SPEAKER - JONATHAN KOZOL (invited)

1:45 - 5:00 MAKING PUBLIC SYSTEMS WORK FOR CHILDREN

1:45 - 2:45 Panel 1: The National View

3:00 - 4:00 Panel 2 - Local Strategies for Keeping Kids in Mainstream
Systems

4:15 - 5:00 Panel 3: Litigation and Law Reform Efforts Revisited

5:15 CLOSING SESSION: BIG IDEAS! How should the systems be
changed? EDGAR CAHN & FLORENCE WAGMAN ROISMAN

6:00 ALUMNI REUNION - Firebird Inn - Building 39 - Connecticut Ave. Level

SYMPOSIUM SUNDAY SCHEDULE

10:00 - Noon OPEN SPACE SESSION I (UDC Building 38 - 2nd Floor)

The Open Space Session will provide an opportunity for self-structured
discussion among Symposium participants and allow the growth of organizing and
research ideas.

Noon LUNCH

1:00 - 3:00 OPEN SPACE SESSION II

_______________________________________

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS AS OF 3/14/06

FEATURED SPEAKERS: Wade Henderson, Theodore M. Shaw, Helaine M. Barnett,
JoAnn Wallace, Edgar S. Cahn, Florence Wagman Roisman, Barbara Arnwine

AFFORDABLE HOUSING
* Margery Austin Turner, Director, Center on Metro Housing and Com. Policy
Center, Urban Institute
* Susan Bennett, Director, Washington College of Law Office of Clinical
Programs, Director, Community and Economic Development Clinic, Professor of Law
* Aaron O'Toole, Clinic Fellow, Housing Clinic of the Harrison Institute,
Georgetown U. School of Law
* Adrian Washington, President, Neighborhood Development Corporation,
Co-Chair, Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force
* Eric Rome, (ASL '82) Eisen and Rome
* Louise Howells, Director, Clinical Programs, Professor, Community
Development Law Clinic & Small Business Law Center, UDC David A. Clarke School
of Law
* Elizabeth Figueroa, (ASL '84) Blumenthal & Shanley
* Brian Gilmore, (DCSL '92) Clinical Law Professor, Howard University School
of Law
* John Hamilton, Chairman, Community First, Inc., Board of Directors, City
First Bank

ACCESS TO JUSTICE
* Alan W. Houseman, Director, Center for Law and Social Policy
* Hon. Inez Smith Reid, (ASL Board Member) DC Court of Appeals
* John Brittain, Deputy Director, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights
* Martha Bergmark, President and CEO, Mississippi Center for Justice
* Peter B. Edelman, Professor of Law, Director, Joint Degree in Law and Public
Policy, Georgetown University Law Center, Co-Chair, DC Access to Justice
Commission
* Jonathan Smith, (ASL '84) Executive Director, Legal Aid Society of DC
* Patty Mullahy Fugere, Executive Director, Washington Legal Clinic for the
Homeless
* Vytas Vergeer, Director of Legal Services, Bread for the City
* Paula Scott, Civil Legal Services Division, DC Public Defender
Service

ECONOMIC JUSTICE
* Sam Daley-Harris, Director, Microcredit Summit Campaign
* Raj Nayak, Associate Counsel, Poverty Program, Brennan Center for Justice,
NYU School of Law
* Dominic Moulden, Executive Director, Manna CDC
* Karen Minatelli, Director of Policy, Employment Justice Center
* Ed Lazere, Executive Director, DC Fiscal Policy Institute
* Laurie Morin, Associate Professor of Law, Community Development Clinic,
UDC-DCSL

MAKING PUBLIC SYSTEMS WORK FOR CHILDREN
* Vinny Schiraldi, Director, DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services
* Joe Tulman, Prof. of Law, (ASL MAT, '84) Dir., Juvenile and Special Ed.
Clinic, UDC-DCSL
* Brooke Lehmann, Childworks, PLLC, Policy Associate, Nat'l Assembly on School
Based Health Care
* Donna Wulkan, Esq. (ASL, '82)
* Morna Murray, Director of Youth Development, Children's Defense Fund
* Rutledge Hutson, Senior Staff Attorney, Center for Law and Social Policy

Submitter: Joan Brunwasser

Submitters Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Submitters Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.