February 26, 2016

Symposium Commemorates 50 Years of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

Sixteen sitting and former judges of the Federal District Court and the Court of Appeals will be speaking at Southwestern Law School on Friday, March 18, 2016 together with professors and practitioners to analyze the international work of the Central District. The one day symposium will cover the international aspects of cases of the past fifty years such as the murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena and its aftermath, the litigation of the military’s former “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, Armenian Genocide claims and the El Monte sweatshop cases. In addition, a morning panel will focus on the efforts of U.S. federal judges teaching rule of law abroad.

The symposium, titled “The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, 1966-2016: International Context,” will take place under the auspices of the Southwestern Journal of International Law, and will mark the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Central District Court that was part of the redesign of California’s Federal judicial districts. Academic co-sponsors include the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society and the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. Southwestern hosted a 40th anniversary symposium in 2006.

Southwestern Dean Susan Prager noted: “Los Angeles became an international city long ago. The 50th anniversary of the U.S. Court for the Central District of California gives us the opportunity to both celebrate the Court’s contributions to Los Angeles and at the same time highlight the often overlooked international aspects of its work.”

Among the current judges of the Central District who will be speaking are: Chief Judge George King, Judge David Carter, Judge Terry Hatter, Judge Ronald Lew, Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell, Judge Virginia Phillips, Judge Manuel Real, Judge Christina Snyder, and Judge Otis D. Wright. Former members of the Court who are on the program include Judge Lourdes Baird, Judge Gary Feess and Judge Dickran Tevrizian, Jr.

Other members of the bench include: Judge M. Margaret McKeown (9th Circuit Court of Appeals and Chair of the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative; keynote speaker), Justice Audrey Collins (Second District Court of Appeal, State of California; U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, retired), Judge Robert C. Bonner (former judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, former Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, former Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and now Senior Principal, Sentinel HS Group, LLC), Judge Barbara J. Rothstein (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, visiting on U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia), and Judge Zaven Sinanian (Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles).

Additional speakers include faculty from Chapman, Columbia, Southwestern, Yale, UC Irvine and UCLA law schools, and practitioners with experience at the ACLU, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the California Labor Commission and the U.S. Marines Judge Advocate General.

Bar association sponsors of the symposium include the Beverly Hills Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association of Los Angeles, the International Law Section of the State Bar of California, and the International Law Section of the American Bar Association.

Articles written in coordination with the symposium will be published in the Southwestern Journal of International Law; copies of the issue will be sent to participants and will also be available for purchase. For further information about the Law Journal, contact the Student Affairs Office.

The symposium will take place from 8:00 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. in the historic Bullocks Wilshire Building on Southwestern’s campus, 3050 Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles. The cost, including lunch, is $75 for non-Southwestern Alumni seeking 7 hours of CLE credit; $50 for Southwestern Alumni seeking 7 hours of CLE credit; and $40 for those not seeking CLE credit.