The REP recently created informational brochures to support or community outreach. Take a look at our community member brochure and our legal advocate brochure. Both brochures are tri-fold and were designed by the wonderful folks at Trudesign Graphics.

The 2007 NLADA Substantive Law Conference (San Jose, California, July 19th-21st) is less than a month away and we can hardly contain our excitement! There are a total of 10 sessions in the substantive area of Race Equity:

• Structural Racism: When Racism Doesn’t Have a Face;
• The Science of Racism: Moving Beyond the Intent Doctrine;
• The Assault on Diversity;
• Mapping, Data & Race: The Importance of Fact Based Advocacy;
• Promoting Race Equity in Land Use, Infrastructure and Government Services;
• Education Disparities in K-12 Public Schools;
• Introduction to the Law and Science of Environmental Justice;
• Community Based Lawyering: Returning to Legal Services’ Roots;
• Using Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law to Protect Clients’ Access to Public Benefits;
• Using Legal Strategies to Create Healthy Homes, Schools and Communities.

If the sessions perk your interest, wait till we tell you about some of the presenters:

• Eva Paterson, President of the Equal Justice Society;
• Professor John Powell, Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity;
• Professor Jerry Kang, Co-Director of the UCLA Law School Critical Race Studies program;
• Lee Cokorinos, Executive Director of the Capacity Development Group and author of The Assault on Diversity: An Organized Challenge to Racial and Gender Justice (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003);
• Ann Joyner, Executive Director of the Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities ;
• Sarah Truehaft, Program Associate at Policylink;
• Dick Bauer, attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services;
• Reed Colfax, attorney at Relman & Dane;
• Demetria McCain, Director of Advocacy and Education at the Inclusive Communities Project;
• Mike Rawson, Co-Director of the Public Interest Law Project;
• Illene Jacobs, Director of Litigation at California Rural Legal Assistance;
• Tammi Wong, attorney at Legal Services Of Northern California;
• Deborah Escobedo, attorney at the Youth Law Center;
• Cynthia Rice, Director of Litigation at California Rural Legal Assistance and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation;
• Steve Fishbach, attorney at Rhode Island Legal Services;
• Zynobia Lai, attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services;
• Mona Tawatao, Regional Counsel at Legal Services Of Northern California;
• Jodie Berger, Regional Counsel at Legal Services Of Northern California.

Registration at the normal rate is open until July 6, 2007. Late registration is available after that date. We hope to see you there.

Professor Imani Perry, Associate Professor of Law at Rutgers School of Law, Camden, recently published an article that the REP hopes our readers will find interesting. In particular, we found the article’s forceful argument in favor of a practice model that puts community lawerying and “post-intent” impact work on equal footing to be particularly relevant to the legal services community.

Imani Perry, Post-Intent Racism: A New Framework For An Old Problem, 19 NBLJ 113 (2007).

• Summary: This article argues that an effective effort to combat racism must occur in “both law and culture.” In other words, “post-intent” legal policy advocacy must be coupled with community activism to effectuate the goal of combating the current forms of racism in American society.

Professors Hing and Johnson informed the REP of their soon-to-be-published article in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. A link to the full text and a summary are provided below.

Bill Ong Hing, Kevin R. Johnson, The Immigrant Rights Marches of 2006 and the Prospects for a New Civil Rights Movement, University of California, Davis Legal Studies Research Paper No. 96, 42 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. (TBD) (2007).

• Summary: “In the spring of 2006, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and immigrants peacefully marched in the streets of cities across the country.” An analysis of these events opens the door to an explication of and engagement with the “formidable hurdles [that must be overcome] before the emergence of a new, multiracial civil rights movement.” Namely, “who will participate if there is to be a new civil rights movement? Will it be a Latina/o civil rights movement or a broader one including African Americans? Will the movement address more than immigrant rights? And just who will be its leaders?” Hing and Johnson deftly explicate the complexities of an effective movement for social justice drawing on both the successes of the past and current realities.