MAIN LINE REFORM TEMPLE & GRATZ COLLEGE present:
How Lawyers Talk about Hate and Discrimination
Ethical Duties vs. First Amendment Right to FRee Speech
Sunday, March 26, 2023
9:30 am - 12:15 pm ET
Online and in-person
Main Line Reform Temple
410 Montgomery Ave, Wynnewood, PA 19096
2 ethics credits
$36 for MLRT members
$72 for non- members
All online CLE participants must keep cameras on.
Join us for this morning program with a bagel break:
9:30 am - 12:15 pm (10:30 am - 11:15 am Bagel Break)
How Lawyers Talk about Hate and Discrimination: Ethical Duties vs. First Amendment Right to Free Speech
The Honorable Greg J. Buzzard
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.
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 underpinning Greenberg 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.
Greg J. Buzzard
Greg Buzzard is an administrative appellate Judge for the Benefits Review Board, a five-member judicial body charged with adjudicating appeals nationwide in litigation involving black lung disease in coal miners, occupational injuries and illnesses in the shipping and maritime industries, and war injuries sustained by military contractors. Appointed to this position by the Secretary of Labor in 2014, he issues decisions in approximately two hundred cases per year involving constitutional challenges, statutory and regulatory interpretation, evidentiary rulings, and factual disputes. Judge Buzzard also serves as an Adjunct Professor of legal ethics at Georgetown University Law Center, where he helps the next generation of lawyers explore the ethical, moral, and social issues lawyers face in the practice of law.
Prior to these roles, Judge Buzzard was General Counsel to U.S. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, serving as the Senator’s chief counsel on a broad range of legal and legislative matters, including government ethics, constitutional interpretation, federal and state justice systems, campaign finance, labor and employment law, immigration, and civil rights. In 2019, he was named a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation for outstanding dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession and the welfare of his community. He holds a J.D. from the West Virginia University College of Law and an LL.M. in International Business and Economic Law from Georgetown.
Judge Buzzard resides in Wynnewood with his wife, Rachel, and children, Luke (6) and Emma (2). They are members of Main Line Reform Temple and his children are students at the MLRT School for Early Childhood Education.
More information: Mindy Cohen, 215-635-7300 x155, mcohen@gratz.edu or www.mlrt.org.