Shaking the Foundations: The West Coast Conference on Progressive Lawyering
October 3rd and October 4th, 2008
Stanford Law School
Shaking the Foundations Mission
Shaking the Foundations is an annual conference open to students from Stanford Law School and other law schools, and aimed primarily at those planning careers in public interest law. The conference is designed to encourage students to use their legal skills in the struggle for social justice, to provide a forum for the discussion of creative strategies used by legal advocates and activists to further progressive goals, and to help students develop relationships within the progressive legal community.
Community Building
Shaking the Foundations' keynote luncheons, progressive networking night, and skills-based workshops help students and advocates build connections. These connections benefit everyone by introducing advocates to some of the nation's top public interest law students and by helping students (and the organizations they join - or start) step effectively into the struggle for social justice.
Innovative Strategies
Shaking the Foundations provides a forum for some of the nation's top practitioners, law students, and academics from around the country to discuss innovative strategies to address our most pressing social justice issues.
Practical Skills
The workshops at Shaking the Foundations are focused on pairing innovative intellectual approaches with the creative, hands-on, practical skills that students will need to be effective advocates.
Inspiration
For the past eight years, Shaking the Foundations has inspired and energized hundreds of public interest lawyers-in-training from all over the country. Past conference participants have commented:
- "The program was excellent, the speakers engaging and informative - a very worthwhile trip! I'm looking forward to next year!"
- "The weekend was very inspiring. It is wonderful to be around this kind of energy."
- "It was incredibly inspiring and informative."
- "It's great this conference exists - I look forward to next year!"
- "Excellent conference. Five stars!"
Critical Topics
Shaking the Foundations seeks to present panels and speakers on relevant, interesting topics that matter - topics that take classroom discourse one step further, translating ideas into action. In the past, panels at Shaking the Foundations have included:
- Reproductive Rights: Strategies for the Future
- Segregated Public Schools: Still Separate and Unequal
- Equally in War and Peace: An Examination of Civil Rights in the Wake of 9/11
- Lawyering in Communities of Color