The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Mountain States Region is pleased to announce the winners of its 2021 Summer Associate Research Program Memo Competition: Madeleine Considine, Austin Hartley and Marcia Levitan-Haffar, who were summer associates at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner; and Annie Liu and Steve Bruns, who were summer associates at Hogan Lovells. Both of the winning teams wrote memos addressing how First Amendment protections of free speech interface with denying government employment to individuals who embrace white supremacist and/or violent extremist beliefs.   

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.  The two winning memos were deemed especially superior by a team of judges that, using a detailed rubric, judged 31 memos produced by 42 participants in two rounds of competition. 

Read the Bryan Cave team’s memo summary here. Read the Hogan Lovells team’s memo summary here.

Madeleine Considine will graduate from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in May 2022, where she is completing her Juris Doctor degree with a focus in Corporate and Commercial Law. At DU, Ms. Considine is an associate editor of the Denver Law Review, a student-attorney in the Community Economic Development Clinic, and a board member of the Business Law Society. Ms. Considine will be joining Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner’s corporate transactional group in its Denver office in the fall of 2022.  

Austin Hartley is a second-year law student at the University of Colorado Law School. He serves as Treasurer of the Latinx Law Student Association, as a Teaching Assistant for Legal Writing, and he externed at the Federal District Court District of Colorado in Judge Christine M. Arguello’s chambers. Mr. Hartley is excited to return to Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner for summer 2022. 

Marcia Levitan-Haffar is a third-year law student at the University of Colorado School of Law. She is a casenote and comment editor for the University of Colorado Law Review, in which she will publish her student note this year. She also externed for two judges—both state and federal—in Colorado. Ms. Levitan-Haffar looks forward to joining Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner after graduation. 

Annie Liu is a second-year law student at the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law, where she serves as the Committees Representative at DU’s Asian Pacific American Law Student Association. She is also a Staff Editor for the Denver Law Review and a contributor to The Race to the Bottom blog. Additionally, Ms. Liu is a mentor for Law School…Yes We Can. 

Steve Bruns is a third-year student at Colorado Law. Before law school, he moved to Washington, D.C., to work for Mathematica, a public policy research firm. At Colorado Law, Mr. Bruns is a member of the Colorado Law Review and the Moot Court Division of Barristers’ Council. After graduating, he will join the litigation team at Hogan Lovells in Denver. 

The memo written by Ms. Considine, Mr. Hartley and Ms. Levitan-Haffar explained that the government may refuse to hire people who hold white supremacist and violent extremist beliefs as long as (1) employment is not expressly linked to whether candidates embrace extremist beliefs and (2) the employer can demonstrate that such beliefs would hinder work performance. They noted that to combat extremism in the police force through legislation, lawmakers must consider how to define a hate group and what constitutes an improper association between an officer and a hate group.   

Ms. Liu and Mr. Bruns addressed how courts balance a police officer’s First and Fourth Amendment protections of speech, association and privacy with a law enforcement agency’s interest in efficient operation. Their memo found that courts almost always prioritize the interests of the law enforcement agency, understanding its efficient operation as important to public trust. The memo explained that the law enforcement agency has a compelling interest in ensuring their employees’ ability to fulfill their job duties soundly, which justifies the agency’s utilization of what would normally be considered excessive investigative measures.  

ADL offers its sincerest congratulations to this year’s winners and their firms! The winners and their firms will be recognized at ADL’s Annual Meeting, to be held this summer. 

ADL thanks all of the participating summer associates, their supervising attorneys, and their firms: Ballard, Brownstein, Bryan Cave, Davis Graham & Stubbs, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, Ireland Stapleton, Otten Johnson, Taft and Hogan Lovells. We also thank the thirteen judges that evaluated the memos for the competition and the 2021 program co-chairs, ADL Mountain States Regional Board members Dan McKenzie and Erin Nave. 

For more information about the Summer Associate Research Program and how your firm can get involved, please email mountainstates@adl.org.