Supreme Court Justice to Give Coffin Lecture

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will present the University of Maine School of Law's eighth annual Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service. The free, public lecture, "In Pursuit of the Public Good: Lawyers Who Care," will be presented at 7 p.m. on Thursday, September 30, 1999 at Portland High School Auditorium.

Only the second woman to serve as a justice of the United States Supreme Court, Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in June, 1993 and was easily confirmed by the Senate. She took the oath of office on August 10th, 1993.

Ginsburg served on the bench of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1980 to 1993. Prior to serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ginsburg was a professor at Columbia University School of Law for eight years. She had served on the law faculty of Rutgers University from 1963-1972.

Ginsburg was admitted to the New York Bar in 1959 after obtaining her J.D. from Columbia Law School. F or the next two years, she served as a clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, United States District Court, Southern District of New York.

In 1971,Ginsburg was instrumental in launching the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. She served as General Counsel of the ACLU from 1973 until 1980 and litigated a series of cases which solidified a constitutional principle against gender-based discrimination. She has written extensively on civil procedure, conflict of laws, constitutional law, and comparative law.

Ginsburg has also served on the Board of Editors of the American Bar Association Journal, and as Secretary, Board Member, and Executive Committee member of the American Bar Foundation. She has served on the Council of the American Law Institute, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Coffin Lecture Series honors Judge Frank M. Coffin, senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and a longtime supporter of the University of Maine School of Law. The lecture series has brought such noted speakers to the university community as U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Robert Reich and historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

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