Nontraditional Lawyers Discuss Public Service

    The Law Center was pleased to have two distinguished attorneys speak in its Lawyers of Vision series in spring 2003. Mark Gearan (L’90), president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and former head of the Peace Corps, and the Hon. Patricia Wald, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, spoke to faculty, students, and alumni about their careers in public service.
    In a January talk, entitled “Law and Community Service,” Gearan discussed the upcoming wave of retirements expected from the federal government and the recent lack of good applicants to replace them. He said that this problem, however, may be offset by a renewed interest in public service because “since 9/11, more and more Americans view government more positively.” Gearan also called for reform in the nomination and approval process for administration officials, saying that “there is a terror out there for people who are even thinking about putting their name forth to go into public service – to join the federal government – because of the confirmation problems [and] the complexities that exist.” He described the challenges he faced on being nominated to head the Peace Corps during the Clinton administration. Based on that experience, Gearan offered ironical advice for how one ought to live if one wants an administrative appointment: it included not traveling abroad, not marrying, and not taking any medications. Nonetheless, he urged students: “Think about public service and federal service as one of your career options for even a part of what you’re going on to do – to be involved in what Teddy Roosevelt called the ‘action and passion of our times.’” In February, Wald, who had recently returned from serving on the Yugoslavia tribunal in The Hague [See article in Spring 2003 Georgetown Law], discussed her career in a talk entitled, “The Road Less Traveled: 50 Years of Nontraditional Lawyering.” She mentioned her good fortune, as the child of impoverished Irish immigrants, to win scholarships to Connecticut College and Yale Law School in the late 1940s. The path of her career, she recalled, reflected to a large degree the development of career opportunities for women. After confronting some degree of sexism then prevalent against women pursuing legal careers, Wald became a law clerk to Judge Jerome Frank of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; was an associate in what was then the Washington, D.C., firm of Arnold, Fortis, and Porter; became a litigator with the Legal Services Corporation; was a Carter administration official; and finally became the first woman to serve as a judge on the D.C. Circuit.
     Judge Wald hailed the idealism of the 1960s, which, she said, led to the formation of the Legal Services Corporation and to the expansion of rights and opportunities for hitherto disenfranchised members of society: “It was a time,” she recalled, “when most of us who were young lawyers really believed the law could be used to make significant reforms in the lives of people who hadn’t had a chance.” Her own work, she noted, was in the areas of juvenile justice (with the help of current Law Center Dean Judy Areen) and rights for the mentally disabled, a cause for which she helped form the Mental Health Law Project of the Center for Law and Social Policy (now called the Bazelon Project).
     Like Gearan, Wald also discussed partisan rancor over her appointment to a federal position, remembering that some Republicans had considered her “anti-family” because of her writings on the rights of children and juveniles. Reflecting on her experience serving on the Yugoslavia tribunal, Wald expressed her support for the newly established International Criminal Court and her regret that the United States was not a party to it: “Having a permanent court
   -whether or not it’s a real deterrent
   -I think provides great [support] to
the establishment of international norms for behavior in times of war.” The Lawyers of Vision series is a joint effort of the dean and the Student Bar Association to present speakers who have used their legal education to make a difference.