Voting Rights Institute in Washington Will Train New Generation of Voting Rights Lawyers

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The Campaign Legal Center’s latest Voting Rights Institute training takes place today in Washington, DC. At the session, co-hosted by American Constitution Society, practitioners and law students will be briefed on the skills necessary to enforce voting rights law.  Particular emphasis will be given to litigation to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.  

The half-day training program, taught by some of the most respected voting rights practitioners in the country, will count toward Continuing Legal Education credit (CLE).  Earlier this year, trainings were held in New York City, Columbus, Ohio, and Atlanta, Georgia.

“Voting rights protections in our nation suffered a terrible setback as a result of the Supreme Court’s Shelby County decision last year, but that does not mean we should cede the field to those who would deny any American the right to vote,” said J. Gerald Hebert, Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center.  “Now, more than ever, we must begin to train new litigators to bring voting rights cases wherever the right to vote is being denied or abridged. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, we are seeing more and more efforts by legislatures, city councils and other government officials to burden the right to vote.”  

At the training, noted voting rights experts will provide background on the Voting Rights Act and relevant federal court cases to participants and will then focus on the mechanics of bringing successful voting rights litigation. J. Gerald Hebert, serves as lead instructor and is joined by veteran voting rights litigators and scholars in the field.

In addition to Mr. Hebert, the Institute’s expert faculty will include: Pamela Karlan (Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice), Marcia Johnson-Blanco (Co-Director, Voting Rights Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law), Paul M. Smith and Jessica Amunson (Partners, Jenner & Block), and Julie Fernandes (Senior Policy Analyst, Open Society Foundations).

Financial support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (rbf.org), the Wallace Global Fund, and the Mertz Gilmore Foundation for the Voting Rights Institute is gratefully acknowledged.  

To read the full agenda for the training, click here.