The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Mountain States Region is pleased to announce the winners of its 2020 Summer Associate Research Program Memo Competition: Molly E. Clarke and Laura J. Salter. Both Ms. Clarke and Ms. Salter were summer associates at Otten Johnson Robinson Neff + Ragonetti. Both of the winning memos address current legal issues around COVID-19 response.

Molly Clarke is a third-year law student at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, where she serves as a Senior Teaching Assistant in Legal Writing and an Associate Editor for the Denver Law Review. Ms. Clarke also serves as a full-time extern for Boulder County Legal Services where she helps to provide free civil legal services to low-income individuals, focusing on family law, housing, and public benefits issues.

Ms. Clarke wrote her winning memo on the privacy and constitutional issues surrounding digital contact tracing for COVID-19. Her memo found that digital contact tracing raises very few legitimate privacy or constitutional issues because the United States lacks comprehensive informational privacy laws. Because the Constitution lacks any explicit protection for informational privacy, and the Supreme Court has been vague and noncommittal on whether such a right even exists, liability would be limited.

Laura J. Salter is a third-year student at the University of Colorado Law School. She  served as the Vice President of the student ACLU, interned at Colorado Legal Services, and worked at the Denver County Attorney’s Office. She is excited to join Otten Johnson Robinson Neff + Ragonetti in September 2021.

Ms. Salter wrote her winning memo on the constitutionality of restricting religious gatherings in a public health emergency. Her memo explained that State Executive Orders that sweep religious activities into restrictions on public gatherings will be held constitutional if (1) they are neutral and of general applicability and (2) the government supplies a rational basis for their application. Salter wrote that Colorado’s Order, which includes a limited exemption for religious activities, would likely be reviewed and upheld under a rational basis standard, since slowing the spread of COVID-19 is a legitimate governmental interest, and limiting viral transmission via in-person contact is rationally related to that interest.

ADL Summer Associate Research Program (SARP) participants are law students who, in their role as summer associates with local law firms, provide critical research on civil rights issues. Eighteen summer associates from six prominent law firms participated in this year’s program.  Under the direction of a supervising attorney and working individually, in pairs or in groups, each summer associate researched an assigned topic and provided a memorandum to ADL.  All of the issues researched are of utmost importance to ADL as the League encounters them in its daily work of serving the community. The two winning memos were deemed especially superior by a team of judges that, using a detailed rubric, judged thirteen memos in two rounds of competition over the course of four weeks.

ADL thanks all of the participating summer associates, their supervising attorneys, and their firms: Ballard Spahr; Bryan Cave; Davis Graham & Stubbs; Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP; Ireland Stapleton; and Otten Johnson Robinson Neff + Ragonetti. We also thank the thirteen judges that evaluated the memos for the competition and the program co-chairs, ADL Mountain States Regional Board members Dan McKenzie and Erin Nave.

ADL offers its sincerest congratulations to this year’s winners and their firm.

For more information about the Summer Associate Research Program and how your firm can get involved, please visit  https://mountainstates.adl.org/contact/.