For the seventeenth summer, ADL sponsored the Maxwell E. Greenberg Summer Associate Research Program (SARP) in cooperation with 12 major LA law firms. Since 1999, prominent LA firms have each donated the time of one or more summer associates to complete pro bono legal research for ADL on cutting edge civil rights issues facing ADL. This year, the summer associates examined 30 questions covering the areas surrounding discrimination, voting rights, education equity, the death penalty, and reproductive rights
Summer associates work with senior lawyers and partners from their firms and can also consult with ADL staff and UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler as they prepare their reports.
The culmination of this year’s program was a cocktail reception on July 23, graciously hosted by Gibson Dunn, where summaries of each of the research papers were distributed. The evening’s guest speaker was the Honorable A. Wallace Tashima, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, who was appointed by President Clinton in 1996.
Judge Tashima, the third Asian American and first Japanese American to be appointed to a United States Court of Appeals, focused his remarks on cases surrounding police misconduct and how the justice system needs to become better at holding law enforcement professionals accountable for actions that stray outside of the law.
ADL SARP supervising attorneys Jill Kaplan, Robins Kaplan LLP, and Stephen Haydon-Khan, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, delivered certificates of achievement to the summer associates from the participating law firms: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld LLP; Blank Rome LLP; Gibson Dunn; Irell & Manella LLP; Jones Day; Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP; Latham Watkins; Morrison & Foerster; Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP; Robins Kaplan LLP; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.
The program was named in honor of long-time Los Angeles attorney Maxwell Greenberg who passed away in October, 2007. Greenberg was National Chair of ADL from 1978 to 1982. Max’s widow, Asha Greenberg, his son, David Greenberg, and his daughter, Jan Levine, were in attendance. Also attending was Max’s granddaughter, Emily Greenberg, who interned for ADL Los Angeles’s office over the summer.