2017 Systemic Justice Conference
Repairing Our Broken Systems
Over the last decade, the U.S. has been confronted with repeated reminders that our systems are failing. From growing wealth and racial inequalities to climate change and environmental degradation, and from economic and criminal-justice crises to a deeply dysfunctional political system, there is ample evidence that our systems are broken. This year’s Systemic Justice Conference will highlight some of the resultant systemic injustices in an effort to suggest some potential repairs.
Students from the Justice Lab will present their work on the following topics:
- Amicus Briefs
- Delivering Legal Services
- Homelessness
- Campus Sexual Assault
- Whistleblowing
- School to Prison Pipeline
- Qualified Immunity
The conference will also feature showcase presentations by students in the Systemic Justice course, on a wide range of topics. Here is a sample of showcase titles:
- Defects in the Toxic Substance Control Act
- A Danish-Inspired Model for Outreach Lawyering
- Law, Identity, and Poverty: Intersectional Perspectives on Poverty
- Incomplete Sentences: How Would You Administer Justice?
- The Arbitration Game: Navigate your Options as a Modern Consumer
Robin Steinberg, the Executive Director of Bronx Defenders, working at the forefront of a systemic, holistic, approach to legal defense and representation, will deliver the Conference Keynote address.
Further panels will include academics and professionals from a variety of walks of life as we begin the collective work of diagnosing our systemic failures and beginning to repair them. Join us!
Who We Are
The Systemic Justice Project was created in 2014 in response to growing evidence that (1) the legal system and system of legal education are broken, (2) the flaws in both are connected and systemic, (3) understanding those flaws and how to address them should be a primary focus of legal education, and (4) students should be leaders in that effort. One prominent drawback with both law and legal education is the role each plays in insulating and disconnecting their participants from policy problems and the suffering they cause. One goal of the Systemic Justice Project is to help counter those effects by giving students the opportunity to work on issues that they care about, to think about those issues systemically, to connect with experts, activists and lawyers working on those problems, and to share their findings. The conference is a manifestation of that experiment in bottom-up pedagogy, built around presentations by students in the Justice Lab, the Legal Education Lab, and the Systemic Justice Course.
We hope you will join us for this year’s conference. Find more information and register at https://systemicjusticeconference.wordpress.com/.
Free Registration here
Tentative schedule here
Systemic Justice Conference 