CHICAGO, April 20, 2008 – The American Bar Association Section of Litigation recognized Jayne E. Fleming of Oakland, Ca. and Jared Genser of Washington, D.C. with the annual John Minor Wisdom Public Service and Professionalism Award for their contributions to public service. The awards were presented at a noon luncheon during the section’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., Friday, April 18.
“Among many nominations of worthy lawyers submitted from across the country, the ABA Section of Litigation chose two extraordinary individuals to receive the 2008 John Minor Wisdom Award,” said Judith A. Miller, San Francisco, chair of the ABA Section of Litigation. “Jayne Fleming and Jared Genser truly exemplify the meaning of this award, which honors lawyers who demonstrate personal and professional commitment to providing legal services to those with financial needs, the disenfranchised, those who cannot speak for themselves and other underrepresented groups. Our award winners this year also demonstrate the breadth and depth of service provided by litigators from the United States to those in need around the world. They truly help make the Rule of Law a reality in practice.”
Fleming is pro bono counsel to the law firm of Reed Smith LLP in Oakland, where she leads the firm’s Human Rights Team. She has devoted thousands of hours to representing pro bono clients, handled 17 asylum matters herself, and supervised over two dozen more. Many of her cases have helped move the law forward in the area of gender-based violence.
Section Chair Judith Miller welcomes attendees
In addition to assisting women fleeing gender-based violence in the Congo, Albania and Honduras, Fleming has represented torture survivors from Sudan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Eritrea, Syria, Rwanda and Morocco. She also lectures and writes on human rights topics; serves on the Executive Committee of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies; and runs a partnership between Reed Smith and the human rights clinic at Penn Law School. This year, Fleming is launching a program on behalf of Central American children fleeing violence. As a result, Reed Smith has taken on 12 new related cases. In addition, the human rights team is partnering with NGOs in an effort to understand and collaborate on the root causes and solutions to violence against children. She will make her fourth trip to Central America to meet with child advocates in the fall. Fleming received her Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law. She also holds a degree, with highest honors, in Political Science from U.C., Berkeley.
Jared Genser is a lawyer in the Global Government Relations Group of DLA Piper LLP in Washington, D.C., where he concentrates on public international law and human rights. In 2006, Genser led a team of more than 20 lawyers commissioned by former Czech Republic President Václav Havel, former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel to produce the report Failure to Protect: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in North Korea. A year earlier, Genser led a team of DLA Piper lawyers who were commissioned by President Havel and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town Desmond Tutu to produce the report A Threat to the Peace: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma.
Award winner Jared Genser with Section Chair Judith Miller
Genser is also founding president of Freedom Now, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization that seeks to free prisoners of conscience around the world through legal, political and public relations advocacy efforts. He is also a lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School, teaching a seminar on the UN Security Council. He is both a young global leader of the World Economic Forum and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A former management consultant for McKinsey & Company, Genser received his Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and attended Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a Raoul Wallenberg scholar. Subsequently, he received a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was an alumni public service fellow. He received his Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School.
Named for a renowned Fifth Circuit judge and civil rights pioneer, the John Minor Wisdom Award recognizes lawyers who have made a significant contribution to the quality of justice in the legal profession and in their communities by making legal assistance accessible to people with low incomes, the disenfranchised, and other underrepresented groups. The award honors lawyers from all areas of practice, including career public interest lawyers, lawyers from private firms and corporate counsel.
Judge Wisdom left a profound mark on American jurisprudence and the civil rights movement during his 42-year career on the Fifth Circuit. He achieved renown for his landmark decisions ordering and implementing desegregation in the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. During the 1960s, despite virulent opposition and threats to his life, he issued opinions ordering integration at the University of Mississippi and requiring recalcitrant school boards to speed the pace of desegregation; he also joined in groundbreaking decisions that eliminated racial discrimination in jury selection and voter registration in Louisiana. As the New York Times reported on his death at age 94 in 1999, Wisdom was one of a “handful of remarkable men who prevailed by meeting the demands of the times with an innovative and creative judicial response that restructured an unjust social order and helped shape the nation in a second reconstruction and left a permanent imprint on American history.”
The ABA Section of Litigation, with more than 76,000 members, includes trial lawyers, judges, and others involved in all aspects of litigation and the dispute resolution process. The section is dedicated to promoting justice both domestically and internationally and enhancing public understanding of and respect for the legal profession.
With more than 413,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.