Santa Clara University School of Law is proud to announce the 2009 Law Commencement Speaker, Bryan A. Stevenson. He will receive an honorary degree from Santa Clara University at its School of Law commencement on Saturday, May 23, 2009, at Santa Clara, California.
Mr. Stevenson is a nationally recognized civil rights authority and serves as the Executive Director of an anti-death penalty advocacy organization, the Equal Justice Initiative, which he founded in 1989. This private, nonprofit law organization litigates on behalf of condemned prisoners, juvenile offenders, and people wrongly convicted or denied effective representation. Stevenson has been representing capital defendants and death row prisoners since 1985, following his graduation from law school, first with the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, and then with the Equal Justice Initiative. In 1998, Mr. Stevenson joined the faculty of law at New York University teaching courses in criminal law and procedure and effective advocacy.
Mr. Stevenson earned his law degree and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University in 1985. He is a distinguished scholar of book chapters and law review articles on how America imposes the death penalty and procedural and substantive fairness in criminal trials and procedure.
Mr. Stevenson has frequently been recognized for his work protecting individuals human and civil rights, including the receipt of the inaugural Alexander Law Prize awarded by Santa Clara University School of Law in 2008, the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship Award Prize, the 1989 Reebok Human Rights Award, the 1991 ACLU National Medal of Liberty, and, in 2000, the Olaf Palme Prize in Stockholm, Sweden for international human rights. In 2004, Mr. Stevenson received the Award for Courageous Advocacy from the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Lawyer for the People Award from the National Lawyers Guild.
