Continuing Legal Education

MLRT & Gratz College are offering two CLE courses with Rabbi Zev Eleff and Professor Mitchell Berman. All are welcome to join us on December 4.

MLRT & Gratz College are offering these CLE courses with Judge Greg Buzzard at MLRT on Sunday, March 26 at 9:30 am

Judge Buzzard will provide a historical overview of anti-discrimination rules applicable to lawyers, substantive differences in states’ adoption and enforcement of those rules, the legal and policy arguments underpinningGreenberg v. Lehocky, and the case’s practical implications, both regionally and nationally, with respect to a lawyer’s often competing duties to clients, the justice system, and society as a whole. 

MLRT members seeking CLE credit will pay $36. Non-member attorneys seeking CLE credit will pay $72 and must register with Gratz College. Those interested in attending for educational purposes are asked to register with MLRT here, but there is no fee. All attorneys MUST register with Gratz College here and keep their cameras on during the class to receive credit.

The legal profession has long considered its lawyers to serve a unique role within society – one that focuses not only on an obligation to be “zealous advocates” for their clients, but on an equally important obligation, as “officers of the court,” to maintain the integrity and fairness of the justice system.  As it relates to eliminating bias and racism, since at least 1998 the American Bar Association has proposed rules – adopted to varying degrees by most states – that prohibit lawyers from engaging in discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, and related factors.

In recent years, however, anti-discrimination rules have been criticized by some attorneys, politicians, and advocacy organizations who contend that they unlawfully infringe on lawyers’ constitutional rights.  In Greenberg v. Lehocky, a case currently pending in federal court, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose work involves defending the rights of professors and students to engage in hate speech on college campuses, has argued that Pennsylvania’s anti-discrimination rule violates his First Amendment right to speak freely about issues that others consider hateful and offensive.