This year marked the 16th annual ADL Mountain States Region’s Summer Associate Research Program. Twenty-five summer associates from five prominent law firms participated in this year’s program. Under the direction of a supervising attorney, each summer associate researched an assigned topic and provided a legal memorandum to ADL. Participants in the program provide ADL’s regional and national staff with legal research on cutting-edge civil rights issues and are exposed to ADL’s mission and the importance of pro bono work. Topics studied this summer include hate speech, book banning, rally permits and more. The memos will all be entered into a competition, with winners honored at ADL’s 2023 Civil Rights Awards Reception on September 13.

At the program’s closing reception hosted at Greenspoon Marder in Denver last month, participants had the honor of hearing from keynote speaker Jennifer Weddle, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig and the Co-Chair of the firm’s American Indian Law Practice. Weddle, who has been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, spoke about her representation of Native Americans and American Indian tribes, as well as her work on the 9/11 commission and her representation in a free speech lawsuit of Naomi Pena Villasano, who was denied permission to wear a special stole representing her Mexican and American heritage at graduation at Grand Valley High School in Colorado earlier this year.

ADL thanks the following law firms whose summer associates participated in this year’s program: Ballard Spahr LLP, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, Greenspoon Marder and Wilmer Hale. ADL also thanks program co-chairs and ADL Regional Board Members Andrew Rubin and Jennifer Shloss.