General Information
Date:
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Location:
Washburn University
Bradbury Thompson Alumni Center
17th and Jewell
Parking: south and west of the Center.
Get Directions and Maps
Shamberg Symposium 2006
Judicial Independence
Opening presentation by Deborah Goldberg, Director, Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law.
About Shamberg Symposiums
Shamberg Symposiums at Washburn University School of Law were established with the generous contribution of noted Washburn Law alumnus John Shamberg.
Following graduation from Washburn Law, Mr. Shamberg was law clerk to the Honorable Walter A. Huxman, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. In 1949, Mr. Shamberg co-founded the Kansas City law firm now known as Shamberg, Johnson & Bergman where he serves as of counsel.
Through his long and distinguished legal career in civil litigation, Mr. Shamberg helped expand the rights of injured persons and shaped the development of tort law in Kansas. Among the notable cases he has handled is the one abolishing governmental immunity in Kansas in proprietary cases, thus allowing injured persons to sue a state agency for the first time in the state's history.
About the Participants
Deborah Goldberg supervises the Democracy Program's scholarship, public education, and legal advocacy, including litigation, promoting full and fair representation of diverse voices in governmental institutions. Ms. Goldberg is the principal author and editor of Writing Reform: A Guide to Drafting State & Local Campaign Finance Laws, and was lead counsel to the intervener in the Supreme Court case Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC. Her work to protect independent and impartial courts includes publication of Public Funding of Judicial Elections: The Roles of Judges and the Rules of Campaign Finance, 64 Ohio St. L.J. 95 (2003). Ms. Goldberg is a graduate of Harvard Law School.
The Honorable Julie A. Robinson has served as a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Kansas since December 2001. Prior to that, she was a U.S. Bankruptcy judge for the District of Kansas from 1994 to 2001. She served as senior litigation counsel and then as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas. Judge Robinson is a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Law.
State Senator John Vratil serves the 11th Senate District in Johnson County, Kansas. He was elected to his first full term in the Senate in 2000, after being elected by the district precinct committee to fill the unexpired term of former Sen. Keith Schraad. He is the senior litigator in the Kansas office of Lathrop & Gage L.C., and his practice is focused on commercial, business, appellate, real estate, and education law. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Kansas.
Jack Focht practices as special counsel to Foulston Siefkin LLP,Wichita, in the firm's health care and litigation practice groups in areas of health care law, fraud and abuse, white collar crime, civil rights, employment law, professional responsibility, government investigations and business litigation. Prior to joining Foulston Siefkin, he was senior partner at Focht, Hughey, Hund & Calvert. Focht received his law degree from Washburn University School of Law.
