The University of Georgia School of Law will host the 10th Annual Working in the Public Interest Conference Feb. 28 beginning at 9 a.m. in the Larry Walker Room of Dean Rusk Hall. Registration is required at http://www.law.uga.edu/wipi.

The conference will highlight practical and creative ways to address social injustice and ensure the protection of human rights through law. Key issues to be explored during the event include Georgia’s response to human trafficking, current issues and pro bono opportunities in immigration law, the disproportionate costs and consequences of civil penalties and routine criminal procedures for non-major offenses, and how to facilitate dispute resolution and mediation between communities and the police who serve them. 

Jonathan Rapping, the president and founder of Gideon’s Promise and director of the honors program in criminal justice at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, will present the keynote address at 3:40 p.m. A 2014 McArthur Foundation “genius grant” recipient and an expert in criminal law and criminal procedure, Rapping also lectures at Harvard University, where he helps run its Trial Advocacy Workshop. He was named a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow by Harvard Law’s Office of Public Interest in 2009.

There will be four panel discussions during the conference with speakers including Sam Olens, Georgia Attorney General; Dana Leigh Marks, National Association of Immigration Judges president; and Charles E. Auslander III, State Court of Athens-Clarke County Judge, among others.

“WIPI is a student-run public interest law conference that brings together practitioners and students to discuss the problems faced by folks with less than adequate representation and ways to ensure equal access to justice,” said Elliott Gillooly, a third-year law student and the conference director. “Our goal is to highlight the issues that practitioners have uncovered and suggest opportunities for law students and lawyers to begin solving these problems.”

The conference is $12 or free for members of the UGA community. For attorneys, five continuing legal education credits (three ethics and two professional) are available at a total cost of $100. Lunch is provided. 

The Working in the Public Interest law student organization brings together practitioners, students and faculty to discuss equal treatment under the law, access to legal representation for the currently underrepresented and practical approaches to public interest lawyering.