At this weekend’s “Shaking the Foundations” conference, law professors from around the country bemoaned the national lack of concern in public interest law and argued that social justice issues should play a more prominent role in their field.

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Chris Piech

Panelists Corey Weinstein, Robert Sillem, Elizabeth Alexander at the Shaking the Foundations conference for students planning careers in public interest law.

The Law School’s seventh annual “Shaking the Foundations” conference featured interactive workshops that allowed audience members to ask speakers specific questions on issues ranging from the environment to poverty, drawing hundreds of students to eight panels over the course of Friday and Saturday.

“‘Shaking the Foundations’ is important because it gives students an opportunity to work on issues about which they feel impassioned, because it touches on aspects of being a lawyer that are at the heart of our profession but all too often lost in the course of law school and because the issues it deals with are critical in their own right,” said Dean Larry Kramer.

In a panel on Hurricane Katrina Friday afternoon, Loyola University New Orleans Prof. Bill Quigley wondered aloud why public interest law is the exception and not the rule in the profession.

Designed to encourage law students to confront social injustices with their legal skills, the conference enabled law students to interact with professionals in the progressive legal community. Second-year law student Brian Bilford, who co-organized a session on the future of education litigation, said that “Shaking the Foundations” helped him remember why he entered law school in the first place.

“‘Shaking the Foundations’ was not only an amazing learning experience, but it also brought me face to face with progressive lawyers of the sort I one day hope to be,” Bilford said.

Emeritus Law Prof. Barbara Babcock said that the title of the conference was somewhat misleading, though, remarking that students are not shaking, but rather building on, legal foundations.

“The attendees recognized the degree to which the past has large unmet visions to bequeath to the future,” Babcock said. “The panels and workshops were extraordinary in content and well-organized. One of my favorite workshops featured the Receiver for the California Prisons and other prison law advocates. Despite how desperate the prison healthcare system is, the speakers gave one hope that change is possible.”

Third-year law student Cindy Liou coordinated a panel session titled, “Genocide and the Law: Making Human Rights Count.”

“I thought that our panel was very successful and worked out very well because our moderator, Prof. Jenny Martinez, kept the conversation dynamic, the audience engaged and covered a broad range of issues related to genocide, human rights law and international criminal tribunals,” Liou said. “It was helpful to have panelists from academic, practitioner and activist backgrounds because it brought different perspectives and priority of interests to the discussion.”

Jessa Barnard, a second-year law student on the event steering committee, said that Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, delivered an “amazing” keynote speech, adding, “there was hardly a dry eye in the audience.”