Events Calendar

Swing by the Atrium for coffee c/o V & E! Happy Friday, y'all!

Public Nuisance: The New Mass Tort Frontier (Cambridge University Press, 2024)

This year marks 80 years since the Supreme Court ruled on Korematsu v. United States. Fred Korematsu along with tens of thousands of other Japanese Americans were incarcerated during WWII. In 1983, a district court in Northern California cleared Korematsu of any wrongdoing and he was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1998. Dr. Karen Korematsu, Executive Director of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute will be in conversation with Professor Arnold Jin on the importance of Korematsu 80 years later.

Dr. Karen Korematsu is the Founder and Executive Director of the Fred T.Korematsu Institute and the daughter of the late civil rights icon, Fred Korematsu. Karen is a national speaker and travels the country advocating for civil liberties, social justice, civics, and ethnic studies education. She promotes Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution on January 30 in perpetuity for all fifty states.

Pizza and beverages will be served courtesy of 600 Degrees Pizzeria and Drafthouse. RSVP Requested: https://utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eeP0118JFBkZ3Ey

Co-presented by the Center for Asian American Studies, William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law, The Audre and Bernard Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice and Sissy Farenthold Fund for Peace and Social Justice.

By this point in law school you’ve learned the foundations of black letter law. You’ve learned the foundations of legal research. You’ve learned the foundations of legal writing.

Maybe you came to law school after years of participating in speech and debate. Maybe you were active in student government or community organizing. Or maybe you’ve never done any public speaking at all. Whether you end up spending every day in the courtroom arguing to a judge or group of jurors, or in a boardroom advocating to a group of venture capitalists, a necessary part of our profession is public speaking.

You advocate every day already. You are advocating for yourself when you write cover letters. You advocate when you interview for summer clerkships. You are using advocacy when you present at your upcoming LRW oral argument and even when you write exams or answer questions in class. Advocacy matters.

If you didn’t already experience success as an advocate, you wouldn’t be in law school. The art of advocacy as a lawyer is an important part of your legal education, no matter where your career in law takes you. The upcoming Workshop will offer you a chance to add more skills to your repertoire.

Professors from the Advocacy Department at the University of Texas School of Law will offer the Spring 2024 1L Public Speaking Workshop on Friday, February 2nd from, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. (with lunch provided beginning at 12:30). You will be taught by successful trial lawyers and talented National Mock Trial Champions; you will be taught by lawyers who are hired to teach experienced lawyers how to be even better.

You will be on your feet. You will be practicing voice and gestures. You will work on fluidity and rhythm and pace and cadence and tone. No matter what your skill level when you walked in the door, in two hours, you will be a better advocate than before. And if you show up at 12:30, we’ll even feed you lunch.

If you have any questions or would like to request the registration form, please contact Marla Massin, mmassin@law.utexas.edu.