February 2019 – Government and Public Service Society

February 20, 2019March 12, 2019

Let’s Taco ‘Bout Public Interest

Wednesday, March 6th | 5:15pm on the 3rd Floor Mezzanine

Feeling like corporate law is nacho friend? Still wondering where your fellow public interest students are? Avocadon’t give up! Come join GPS for informal socializing and a meal at the law school. Nanataco and shade will be served. Co-sponsored by the Career Center and Government & Public Service Society (GPS).

February 12, 2019March 12, 2019

GPS Lunch with Professor Siegel

Tuesday, February 26th | 12:30pm

Please join GPS for lunch with Professor Neil Siegel. Space is limited, so please RSVP here. Sponsored by the Government and Public Service Society. For more information, please contact Krista Kowalczyk at krista.kowalczyk@duke.edu.

Professor Siegel is a constitutional law generalist. His scholarship addresses a variety of areas of constitutional law and, in doing so, considers ways in which a methodologically pluralist approach can accommodate changes in society and the needs of American governance while remaining disciplined and bound by the rule of law. His articles on collective action federalism offer constitutional justification for robust, but not limitless, federal power. His contributions in the area of separation of powers document and conditionally justify the role of historical governmental practices and norms in constraining political partisanship and partially constituting congressional, executive, and judicial power. His writings on the politics of constitutional law and judicial statesmanship seek to understand how participants in the practice of constitutional law can vindicate the preconditions for the legitimacy of constitutional law. His constitutional theory scholarship analyzes, among other issues, how perceptions of the clarity or ambiguity of the constitutional text are affected in part by purposive, structural, historical, doctrinal, and consequentialist considerations. His work on sex equality and reproductive rights examines how equality values are protected under both equal protection and substantive due process, and extends the skepticism of constitutional sex equality doctrine to pregnancy discrimination and restrictions on access to contraception and abortion.

February 4, 2019

GPS Membership Social

Monday, February 4th | 6:00pm at Hi-Wire Brewing – 800 Taylor St, Durham, NC 27701

Interested in connecting with students interested in the government or public sector in a more informal setting? Join the Government and Public Service Society at Hi-Wire Brewing for our spring social! Hang out and connect with public interest focused students from all grade levels. Food will be provided! Sponsored by the Government and Public Service Society. For more information, please contact Chris Johnson at christopher.e.johnson@duke.edu.

February 4, 2019February 4, 2019

GPS Lunch with Professor Demeritt

Wednesday, February 20th | 12:30pm

Please join GPS for lunch with Professor Hannah Demeritt. This event is capped at 10 students, so please RSVP here. Sponsored by the Government and Public Service Society. For more information, please contact Ellie Shingleton at eleanor.shingleton@duke.edu.

Professor Hannah Demeritt, a Clinical Professor of Law, is a supervising attorney in the Health Justice Clinic.

Professor Demeritt received her J.D., with high honors and membership in the Order of the Coif, from Duke Law School in 2004. She received her B.A. from Reed College (Portland, Oregon) in 1992. Between graduation from Reed and acceptance into Duke Law, she worked as a social worker, advocating for indigent clients, in Portland and in New York City. As a law student, Professor Demeritt performed pro bono work, interned at Legal Aid, and completed two of the Duke Law clinics. She was also a senior staff editor on Law and Contemporary Problems.

After graduating from Duke, Professor Demeritt clerked for the Honorable Robin Hudson for three years, at the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court. After clerking, she practiced for three years as a solo practitioner in Durham, representing primarily indigent criminal defendants at the trial and appellate levels. She also represented juveniles in delinquency court and served on the Executive Committee of the Juvenile Defense Section of North Carolina Advocates for Justice from 2008-2010. In 2010, Professor Demeritt went to work as an assistant appellate defender in the North Carolina Office of the Appellate Defender. There, she served as co-counsel on JDB v. North Carolina, a case she had worked on pro bono in State court prior to joining the Office of the Appellate Defender. In June 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court decided JDB in her client’s favor.

From 2007- 2009, while still in solo practice, Professor Demeritt also worked part-time in the Health Justice Clinic at Duke, travelling the State to supervise students providing offsite legal assistance. She also taught legal writing to 1L’s at North Carolina Central University School of Law. Professor Demeritt has also been teaching legal ethics at Duke for several years and returned to work at Duke Law full-time, as a supervising attorney in the Health Justice Clinic, in 2011.

Professor Demeritt is admitted to practice in North Carolina and the United States Supreme Court. She is a member of the American Bar Association (and its Professional Responsibility section), the North Carolina Academy for Justice, and the North Carolina Gay Advocacy Legal Alliance.