Pictured: ADL Western States Counsel Michelle Deutchman, SARP Co-Chair Brent Sokol, SARP Co-Chair Daniel Weiss, UCLA Professor Adam Winkler
ADL kicked off the seventeenth annual Maxwell E. Greenberg Summer Associate Research Program on June 2. Attorneys and summer associates from participating law firms attended the cocktail reception at Jones Day. UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler, who donates his time during the summer to provide advice on the research topics, welcomed the participants and spoke about what he termed the “Hobby Lobby” era where there has been and will continue to be an increase in conflicts between two constitutional principles, religious freedom and personal rights. Furthermore, he said that claims of religious freedom will win over personal rights much more now than during the early civil rights era.
Since 1999, ADL has collaborated with major law firms in Los Angeles to draw on their resources and expertise to assist with the work of ADL. In 2008, The program was renamed the “ADL Maxwell E. Greenberg Summer Associate Research Program” to honor long-time Los Angeles attorney Maxwell Greenberg who passed away in October, 2007. Greenberg was National Chair of ADL from 1978 to 1982.
This summer, 12 law firms are donating summer associate time to research civil rights topics for ADL’s use in handling discrimination complaints, filing amicus briefs, and developing policy. The topics include death penalty, discrimination, education equity, privacy and reproductive rights.