2008-2009 Gates Public Service Law Speaker Series
Vincent Warren
Director of Center for Constitutional Rights
Monday, September 29, 2008, 3:00-5:00 pm
Room 115, University of Washington School of Law
Vincent Warren became executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in 2006. Before that, he spent seven years as national senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where he led national constitutional and impact litigation to advance civil rights and civil liberties. The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for the last six years. Warren provides unparalleled insight and expertise into the case Boumediene vs. Bush and what it was like to be at the epicenter of an unprecedented victory for human rights. Warren has also worked as a staff attorney in the criminal defense division of the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn, the single largest provider of criminal defense services for the City of New York. His public service includes working as a judicial law clerk in the U.S. District Court in New York; monitoring the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in South Africa under the auspices of the National Lawyers Guild; and serving as a volunteer with the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami. Warren graduated in 1986 from Haverford College with a B.A. in Political Science and received his law degree from Rutgers University in 1993.
Hon. Richard Paez
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Monday, October 27, 2008, 4:00-5:00 pm
Room 133, University of Washington School of Law
Richard Paez is a federal judge in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Appointed by President Clinton he was confirmed by the Senate in March 2000. Paez received his BA from Brigham Young University and his JD from UC Berkeley. He has practiced law at the Western Center on Law and Poverty, California Rural Legal Assistance and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. His judicial appointments are the Los Angeles Municipal Court, US District Court of the Central District of California and the Ninth Circuit. Paez, the first Mexican American to sit on the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, spent the 1970s practicing poverty law, first as a staff attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance and then the Western Center on Law and Poverty, and later as the executive director of litigation for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. It was Gov. Jerry Brown who named him to the municipal bench, where he stayed through a succession of California Republican administrations. When he made the unusual leap from municipal court to U.S. district court, it was through the intervention of President Clinton.
Karen J. Hanrahan '00
Vice President for International Peace and Stability at MPRI, an L-3 Communications company
Monday, November 17, 2008, 4:00-6:00 pm
Room 133, University of Washington School of Law
Karen J. Hanrahan is currently the Vice President, International Peace and Stability at L-3 Communications, MPRI Strategy Division, which company provides national security, defense, and law enforcement customers within the US and abroad with professional services, specialized products, and integrated solutions for education, training, and operations. She previously worked with the U.S. Department of State as an Iraq Rule of Law Coordinator and before that as a Senior Rule of Law Coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, where she designed the U.S. Government Rule of Law Strategy and implementation plan for Iraq. She has also served as a Senior Advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Human Rights and as an Advisor on Human Rights and Transitional Justice for USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) in the Office of Transition Initiatives in Iraq. Hanrahan is a UW School of Law graduate (2000), and received her master’s degree in international peace and conflict resolutions from The American University. She has a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and attended the King Fahd Language School in Morocco.
John McKay
Seattle University professor and former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington
Hon. Don Horowitz
Retired King County Superior Court Judge
Monday, February 23, 2009 4:00-6:00 pm
Room 138, University of Washington School of Law
John McKay is an adjunct professor at Seattle University and teaches National Security Law and Constitutional Law of Terrorism. A Seattle native, McKay received his BA from the UW in 1978 and, after working as an aide to Congressman Joel Pritchard, he went on to earn his law degree from Creighton University. McKay has served as a White House Fellow, as the President of the Legal Services Corporation in Washington, D.C., and as United States Attorney for Western Washington from October 30, 2001, through December 2006. In 1995, the Washington State Bar Association named McKay Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year, and in 2001 he received the Association’s Award of Merit, its highest honor.
Donald Horowitz has been active in the justice and legal systems since the late 1950’s and continues to be fully involved in efforts to improve the quality and delivery of justice to all persons. He is a former King County, Washington Superior Court Judge, and has served the last 25 years as a mediator and arbitrator. He has also been a Senior Assistant Attorney General for the State of Washington, was the first Chief Counsel for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, and later that Department’s Deputy Secretary.