Spring Break
Annual law symposium covers controversial court cases
DIANA PEREZ
Issue date: 10/19/09 Section: News
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What about taking a stand against your political allies to defend the American justice system from politicization?
These were just some of the topics brought up at the University School of Law's Tenth Annual Legal Ethics & Professionalism Symposium. This year's symposium, entitled "Drawing the Ethical Line: Controversial Cases, Zealous Advocacy, and the Public Good," took place Friday at the Law School's Hirsch Hall.
"I teach a course on legal ethics and I tend to spend a lot of time in my class talking about these issues. The symposium is supposed to focus on legal ethics and professionalism, so I just picked this particular theme for this program," said Lonnie Brown, the symposium's organizer and a professor in the University's School of Law.
Brown said the law symposium is a collaborative effort between the law schools of Mercer University, Emory University, Georgia State University and the University of Georgia. He said the four schools rotate hosting the symposium.
This year the symposium featured keynote speeches from former U.S. Attorney General W. Ramsey Clark and former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico David C. Iglesias.
Ramsey, who served as attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson, has been involved in several controversial cases throughout his career. Most notably, he played a key role in the passage of several civil rights legislations and served on a panel to defend Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi High Tribunal.
Iglesias served as U.S. Attorney under the Bush administration and was one of the U.S. attorneys dismissed during the Justice Department controversy, which eventually led to the resignation of Alberto Gonzales.
"The trial was a complete fraud," Ramsey said during his speech.
According to Ramsey, during the trial of Hussein, the judge was changed three times with the final judge being a Kurd who lost family and relatives during Hussein's suppression of the Kurds in 1991.
Iglesias has also been involved in several highly publicized cases, including the case which served as the inspiration for the film "A Few Good Men." Iglesias said he was appointed U.S. Attorney for the district of New Mexico exactly eight years ago on Friday. He said during his term his office was the fourth most productive office in the U.S.
