Howard C. Kaplan Memorial Lecture on Law and Society: Changing the Law by Changing the Lawyers

James Forman Jr., the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale Law School, will present Changing the Law by Changing the Lawyers. 

Can the shape of what lawyers do in our society be reformed by changing the characteristics of who succeeds in gaining admission to law school? Each year the Howard C. Kaplan Memorial Lecture examines the ways in which law is being used to accomplish social change. This year it will highlight one of the most innovative among them. Professor Forman will be accompanied by Natalie Smith and Christian Aviles, two former participants of the Access to Law School program.

Registration required.

Forman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author with an interest in the consequences of mass incarceration. He is also the founder of the innovative Access to law Program, which has mentored first generation, low-income, minority candidates, many of whom are social activists and some of whom are formerly incarcerated, for admission to law schools. The program has had some extraordinary successes.

Forman's first book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, was on many top 10 lists, including The New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2017, and was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. He is also the author of Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change. He attended public schools in Detroit and New York City before graduating from the Atlanta Public Schools. After attending Brown University and Yale Law School, he joined the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., where for six years he represented both juveniles and adults charged with crimes. 

Howard C. Kaplan, a native of the Bronx, NY, moved to Stamford as a graduate of Yale Law School to join Wofsey, Rosen, Kweskin & Kuriansky, where he eventually became a partner and remained for his entire legal career. A pillar of the community, Kaplan also served on the Stamford Board of Representatives, and was a founding member of the Stamford Board of Ethics, president of the Stamford Child Care Center, and director and counsel to the Stamford Land Conservation Trust.

This lecture is part of the annual Howard C. Kaplan Memorial Lecture on Law and Society and is supported by the Stamford law firm Wofsey, Rosen, Kweskin & Kuriansky and the family of the late Howard Kaplan.