The annual Clarke Family Prize in Legal Ethics CLE is an annual Continuing Legal Education event focusing on the topic of professional responsibility. The Clarke Prize program itself originates in the Harvey and Harriet Clarke Fund for Professionalism and Ethics. Harvey Clarke was a well-respected jurist, and the Clarke family was deeply involved in the Spokane, Washington community. Consistent with the Clarke family’s values, the Clarke fund was endowed in 1980 to support Gonzaga Law’s commitment to promoting legal ethics for both law students and lawyers. The Clarke family legacy continued through William “Bill” Clarke, one of Harvey and Harriet’s four children. Bill Clarke taught at Gonzaga Law from 1975 to 2005. He was a favorite among students and colleagues, in large part because of his own commitment to professionalism and ethics.
Professional Responsibility & DEIA: The Legal Ethics of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
April 11, 2024 | 5:00 – 7:30 PM PDT
This is an in-person event and has been approved for two Washington Ethics CLE credits. For attendees needing credit in other states, a certificate of attendance will be sent to you after the event.
Event Program
(Subject to Change)
CLE Panel:
- Rebecca Aviel, University of Denver Sturm College of Law Professor
- Aruna Masih, Oregon Supreme Court Justice
- Terra Nevitt, Executive Director of the Washington State Bar Association
Moderator: Drew Simshaw, Assistant Professor and Clute-Holleran Scholar, Gonzaga Law School
Panelists
Professor Rebecca Aviel
Rebecca Aviel is Professor of Law and Maxine Kurtz Faculty Research Scholar at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, she practiced in the litigation department of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco and clerked for Judge Barry Silverman of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She also spent two years as a staff attorney for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Aviel’s research and teaching interests include legal ethics and professional responsibility, family law, and constitutional law, with a scholarly focus on the opportunities for insight where these fields intersect. Her current research examines the role of lawyers in a constitutional democracy, the constitutional implications of professional regulation, and innovation in the delivery of legal services to litigants in family court.
Her recent work, The Weaponization of Attorney’s Fees in an Age of Constitutional Warfare, 132 Yale L.J. 2048 (2023), explains that states are using the threat of catastrophic, one-sided fee awards to evade judicial review in controversial areas like abortion and gun control. Litigants challenging such laws face liability for the opposing party’s legal fees, while the state and its ideological allies bear no such risk. Not only do these provisions thus discriminate on the basis of viewpoint, they obstruct access to counsel by imposing joint and several liability on attorneys for the disfavored parties. For the first time ever, attorneys face fee liability not for any misconduct but solely for representing a certain kind of litigant raising legitimate claims that the state doesn’t want subjected to judicial scrutiny.
Justice Aruna A. Masih
The Honorable Aruna A. Masih was appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court by Governor Tina Kotek. She was sworn into office on September 1, 2023.
Before her appointment, Justice Masih worked for over 25 years in a variety of areas of civil law, including civil rights, employment, labor, professional licensure, contract, pension, elections, and constitutional law. She was a partner in the law firm of Bennett Hartman, LLP and served as an associate in the law firm of McKanna Bishop Joffe, LLP. Her work included appearances in state and federal courts and before the legislature and administrative agencies.
Justice Masih serves on the Board of Directors of the Oregon Women Lawyers Foundation and the South Asian Bar Association of Oregon, of which she is a founding member. She is also an Advisory Board Member of the Roseway Recovery Café and coaches the McDaniel High School Constitution Team. She has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Multnomah Bar Association, Oregon Minority Lawyers Association, and Oregon Women Lawyers and as Chair of the Oregon State Bar’s Labor and Employment Section and Advisory Committee for Diversity and Inclusion. She was the recipient of the Multnomah Bar Association’s inaugural Diversity Award in 2017 and was awarded special recognition by the Oregon Minority Lawyers Association for her part in creating that organization’s bar exam scholarship program.
Justice Masih was born in New York to a Punjabi, Indian father and British mother. Her parents were medical missionaries, and when she was six months old, moved the family back to India to work at a rural, mission hospital in Punjab. Her family called the hospital campus home for fifteen years, and she attended Woodstock School, an international school up in the Himalayas. Masih returned to the United States in high school.
She graduated cum laude with a B.A. in International Relations and French from Wellesley College in 1994 and attended law school at Tulane University and Creighton University School of Law, earning her J.D. in 1997.
Terra Nevitt
Terra Nevitt has served as the Executive Director of the Washington State Bar Association since 2019. She was originally drawn to the state bar to help coordinate the state’s network of civil legal aid providers as liaison to the Access to Justice Board, and the theme of law-in-service-to-those-most-in-need has defined her legal career—from leading civil-legal aid organizations to working as a non-profit immigration attorney to working in Bangkok to end the exploitation of children. She is a fierce advocate for equity and inclusion, in the legal community and world at large. Outside of her office, you can find her tracking orcas from her deck, traveling the globe with her family, and visiting as many local farmstands as possible.
Have questions? Feel free to email us at guzmans@gonzaga.edu.