To Preserve the Past
To Serve the Present
To Enhance the Future
National Equal Justice Library
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Washington College of Law 4801 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20016
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REGINALD HEBER SMITH FELLOWS
ALUMNI NEWS
This section of the "Equal Justice Update" website is devoted to the more than 2,000 alumni of the Reginald Heber Smith Fellowship Program which flourished from 1967 through 1983. Beginning in 1997, the National Equal Justice Library began a project to gather addresses and information from all former "Reggies." The Library did so because it is convinced the alumni of this outstanding program possess knowledge and insights of both historical and practical importance to present and future generations. The Library also hopes to foster communication among "Reggies" and to reinvigorate their commitment to the ideals which attracted them to the Reginald Heber Smith Program in the first place.
1998 Reggie Reunion
As part of its Reggie Alumni program, in November, 1998, the National Equal Justice Library in collaboration with the Legal Services Corporation held a "Reggie Reunion" at the Library's host institution, American University's Washington College of Law. This Reunion attracted over 150 former "Reggies" to a two-day program of panel discussions, reminiscences, receptions, hallway conversations, many laughs and a closing banquet. This "Reggie Reunion" is described below. The Library videotaped all the sessions and retains those videos in its modest but growing Media Center. Each year's class also gathered together for an hour or two of collective reminiscing about their joint experiences during training and their individual experiences after they were assigned to local legal services agencies. The Library audio-taped these conversations and they, too, are available in the NEJL's Media Center.
National Equal Justice Library seeks papers
and oral histories from Reggies
The National Equal Justice Library encourages all Reggies to send unpublished materials (correspondence, memos, reports, significant case documents, etc.) and oral reminiscences (either written or on tape) related to their experiences as "Reggies" to the National Equal Justice Library for inclusion in the NEJL Archives. Please use the following address -- Robert Forman, Archivist, National Equal Justice Library, Washington College of Law, 4801 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington D.C. 20016. If you have questions, you can reach Mr. Forman at (202 274-4320 or by fax at (202)274-4365 or by e-mail at nejl@wcl.american.edu. One Reggie alumnus, Larry Fox, wrote a reminiscence and reflection on Reggie experience we found so interesting we have included excerpts below under the heading "A Reggie Reminisces".
Add your name to the NEJL's "Reggie" Alumni Roster
The National Equal Justice Library already has collected the names and addresses of over 1300 former "Reggies," something over half of those who served in this program. If you haven't supplied this information before (or if your address has changed) please fill out the form below and submit it to the Library. You will be added to the list and also receive future issues of the Library's newsletter, called "= JUSTICE UPDATE." If you would prefer mailing or e-mailing your address and other information, please write to Robert Forman, Archivist, National Equal Justice Library, Washington College of Law, 4801 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016 or send your e-mail message to nejl@wcl.american.edu
The following information will be added to the National Equal Justice Library's
master roster of Reginald Heber Smith Fellows. The Library and your fellow
"Reggies" thank you for responding.
Copyright © 1999 National Equal Justice Library. All rights reserved.
Revised: November 03, 2001
Reggie
Reunion highlights
On November 13 & 14, 1998, one hundred and fifty Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellows gathered at the National Equal Justice Library located at American University in Washington, D.C. to relive their heady days as legal services lawyers. They were “early revolutionaries” in the words of Glenn Carr, a 1967 Fellow and the director of the program in the 1970s. From 1967 until 1985 about 2,300 bright young lawyers committed to the creative use of the law to aid the poor were granted Fellowships to work for a year or two in legal services offices. The competition was stiff. Law Professor David Filvaroff of the University of Buffalo who was in charge in 1969 saw his challenge as “... choosing the best 250 ....” Many are still leading lawyers for the poor, in legal services and in private practice.
Charter Class of Reginald Heber Smith Fellows at University of Pennsylvania, 1967
The program began in the Office of Economic Opportunity, President Johnson’s War on Poverty, and was continued by the Legal Services Corporation which along with the National Equal Justice Library co-sponsored the reunion event. Reginald Heber Smith is the father of modern legal aid in the United States. Straight out of law school in 1916 he took over as director of the fledgling Boston Legal Aid Society. Smith’s monumental study of legal aid published in 1919 is the foundation of the national legal aid movement that led to the establishment of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and eventually the federal government’s support for legal aid.
The cutting edge legal work of the “Reggies,” as they came to be called, is an important part of the history of legal services. Consistent with the Library’s mission of preserving that history, the staff and board of the Library undertook to find the Reggies and their stories. The Library now has current addresses for about half of these legal services pioneers and the search continues.
The Fellows are now legal services lawyers, private practitioners and public leaders. Among them are Executive Directors and board members of legal services programs and support centers; at least two current governors, Angus King of Maine and William Janklow of South Dakota; members of Congress like Earl Hilliard a leader of the Black Caucus, at least one Ambassador and one former Cabinet Member, George Bruno of New Hampshire and Frederic Pena of Colorado, a score of appellate and trial judges, a dozen present or former law school deans and scores of professors. They are outstanding lawyers, in small towns and large, in large firms and small.
Recalling the Reggie Experience
Commitment to the noblest principles of the legal aid and defender movement brought these men and women to legal services when they were fresh law school graduates. Glenn Carr, in a message read at the reunion, said they were “people looking for a cause.” A 1980 Fellow, Baldwin Moy, now with CRLA, said “the Reggies practiced law loud.”
The conversations at the reunion proved the strength and endurance of that commitment. They have not lost the idealism that carried them to what many described as the best years of their lives in the law. Their rebellious spirits have not diminished, at least not much. Professor Dave Filvaroff, who was the Reggie Program director in 1969, moaned at the reunion that “thirty years later they are still complaining about where they were assigned!”
The Fellows comforted Filvaroff by what they said about the training
program he designed. “Dazzling,” was the way Guy Saperstein, a 1969 Fellow and
now California’s most successful employment discrimination lawyer described
the education he experienced that summer.
“Summer camp with the most intensive legal training - more than she
learned in law school,” was the description given by Marcia Robinson Lowry,
another 1969 Reggie and now the Director of Children’s Rights in Manhattan.
While at the reunion, many Fellows toured the National Equal Library on the first floor of the law building. They found historical displays, photos, memoranda, judicial opinions, articles and books, even an aged Reggie tee shirt, that recalled great days and brought smiles and good memories of clients, hard work, triumphs and defeats. During the reunion, the Library recorded oral histories and Reggies donated materials for the Library’s collection that will preserve this significant chapter in the history of legal services to the poor.
Panel
discussions
The
memories and spirit of the reunion were captured in four discussions.
At the first panel moderated by Larry Fox (’69) Clint Bamberger and
Earl Johnson, the first and second directors of OEO-LSP spoke of their initial
vision for the Reggie program. Three directors
of that program Howard Lesnick,
David Filvaroff, and John Davis explained how they implemented and expanded
that vision.
Next, Clint Lyons, after declaring he was “destined to be a Reggie in 1971", stirred the Fellows to talk of why they became Reggies, what they did and how their lives were enriched. Barry Fisher (’69) led the discussion of what the Reggies took with them and what they are doing now.
Martha Bergmark and Alan Houseman, Reggies in ‘73 and ‘68, were on a panel that discussed the present and future of legal services with Douglas Eakeley and John McKay, the Chair and President of the Legal Services Corporation, and once again Clint Lyons, this time in his capacity as President of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.
Closing
banquet
At the closing banquet, the Library conferred the first annual Reginald Heber Smith Book Awards on two publications about equal access to justice. One of the authors, Melissa Fay Greene, read excerpts from her book, Praying for Sheetrock, that brought nods of recognition and howls of laughter from the Reggies who remembered similar stories from their years as legal services lawyers.
The day ended on a memorable high note as Sargent Shriver, the Director of OEO when the Reggie program began, and now an Honorary Chair of the National Equal Justice Library, stirred the memories, minds and hearts of the Fellows with recollections of what moved the Nation, the President and Mr. Shriver to help the least fortunate in a wealthy nation. He praised the Reggies for being a critical part of a program that has done more to provide equal access to Justice for poor people than anything in our nation’s history. As exuberant and optimistic as he was thirty years ago, Shriver proved he could still energize an audience.
In the week following the reunion, Baldwin Moy, now working as a legal services lawyer with CRLA wrote:
“As Reggies we have a special duty to hold on to what made us want to be advocates for equal justice, because it is that vision, that strength and that courage that this society must have if we are ever to become a just society. ... Perhaps the greatness of the Reggie program lies not in what it was and the fact that it can still make us feel special, but what it can be and that it can still inspire and bring out the best in all of us. . . . I went to work today with both renewed energy and sense of purpose.”
If Moy’s reaction is typical, the reunion indeed was a success!
Many former legal services lawyers, including those who were recruited through the Reginald Heber Smith Fellowship program, have gone on to prominence in the public or private sector. For most the legal services experience remains a high point in their legal careers and one that shaped their values. Yet few have published anything recalling their years as legal services lawyers or how it influenced what they did later in their professional lives. Larry Fox (Reggie Class of 1969) has provided such a testament in an article published in 17 Yale Law & Policy Review 305 entitled “Legal Services and the Organized Bar: A Reminiscence and a Renewed Call for Cooperation.” On this page we reprint some selected excerpts from that article.
1969-72: The Legal Services years
“My own reminiscence: In the summer of 1969, only a year after the convulsive events of 1968, 250 very young lawyers gathered on the bucolic campus of Haverford College in suburban Philadelphia to spend several weeks in training as future “Reggies.“ Throwing modesty to the wind, a present-day review of that group’s credentials demonstrates that the best and the brightest from the most prestigious law schools had been selected to participate. Legal services in its infancy, sheltered in the dynamic and burgeoning Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), had the luxury back then to fund two-year fellowships for all of these young lawyers.”
“Extra lawyers, law reform efforts, lobbying, and community organizing all sound as quaint as high-buttoned shoes to those of us who gnash our teeth over the current restrictions, both financial and programmatic, that cramp the style of federally funded legal services programs today. But in 1969, because of this fellowship and the entire OEO program, anything seemed possible.” [The two preceding pages of this newsletter suggest those closer to the OEO Legal Services Program realized it was no longer “dynamic and burgeoning” but rather embattled and in political jeopardy. But to Fox and others in the front lines the national program still seemed a bulwark of commitment to the eradication of poverty.]
“We Reggies were eager and bursting with enthusiasm. Fed daily doses of inventive strategies and innovative approaches, we honestly believed that we lawyers could cure the domestic problems in America, though none of us could understand how anything we could do would solve the mounting problems in Southeast Asia.”
“After our sojourn in suburban Philadelphia, the Reggies literally were scattered to the four winds, serving in the major cities of America and in rural Appalachia, the central valley of California, and migrant labor camps in Florida. I set off to Community Action for Legal Services (CALS) in New York….CALS’s sole role was to act as central administrator and provide law reform backup for its twenty-five to thirty neighborhood offices.
“What halcyon days these were! Goldberg v. Kelly had established the right to a hearing before loss of welfare benefits, and from that important precedent legal services lawyers had constructed elaborate procedural safeguards to protect the poor in every government program. Equal protection claims abounded….Community groups were organized around housing, welfare rights, education, and food. Funding abounded, the program was new, hope sprung eternal, and daily successes simply reinforced our optimistic views.”
Becoming a “Philadelphia lawyer”
“Three years and many cases later, it was I who sold out….Not long after my departure for Philadelphia, [a position with the corporate law firm of] Drinker Biddle & Reath, and the precious existence of a private lawyer, Richard Nixon mounted the first real challenge to legal services….”
“Though I had left legal services, to salve my guilty conscience I continued to follow its fortunes with great interest. And who came to do battle over whether legal services would survive? To my surprise, the ABA led the charge, as only the establishment bar could, in arguing that legal services should be left intact and that an independent corporation be established to administer it. Suddenly an organization I would not consider joining as a legal services lawyer, and now only belonged to because my firm paid my membership, was playing a heroic role. If the ABA could so effectively help save legal services, then it was up to me to become involved in the ABA. And so I did.
1994 --present: The commitment lives on
“Fast forward to late 1994. It is the Fall and the...November elections have produced a Republican majority committed to the Contract with America, which includes the elimination of federal funding for legal services for the poor — the end of the Legal Services Corporation….Yet...November 8, 1994 is also the day my brother Jon, a Republican from Pennsylvania, won a narrow victory [for U.S. Congress].”
“These developments coincided with my becoming Chair-Elect of the ABA’s Litigation Section — the Association’s largest section, with over 60,000 members. The Section threw itself into the legislative fray, seeking approval from the ABA House of Delegates to oppose a wide range of misguided legislation that would interfere with the adversary process.”
“The next year, when I served as Chair, we consolidated our forces and organized the opposition to further cuts to LSC…[M]y freshman Republican brother announced that he would come to our aid, despite enormous pressure from Republican House leaders….[B]efore the vote, Jon literally spun me around the halls to visit a few wavering representatives….I sat in the gallery with a couple of White House officials as the debate began,...The speeches were eloquent, with Jon and Representatives Allen Mulholland and Jim Ramstad leading the way….Then the House moved to the electronic vote….[F]inally, we went over the top,...For me, there could not be a prouder moment. LSC had been saved, with my Congressman brother in the lead and the ABA doing what it does best to support this valuable program.”
“What does all this mean for today? Even as the challenges and impediments facing legal services programs have never been greater, the opportunities for working constructively and effectively with the private bar also are at an all-time high. Indeed, I like to think that if we came together, we could recapture some of the reform spirit that infected the Reggie program back in 1969.”