PRESIDENT ' S MESSAGE
Message From the President
CRAIG CLELAND Ogletree , Deakins , Nash , Smoak & Stewart , PC Craig . Cleland @ ogletreedeakins . com
J ust before the Jewish New Year , a time of healing and renewal , the law lost Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg .
Even those who may have disagreed with her on occasion held her in the highest regard . Attorney General William Barr , for one , said that “ her legal ability , personal integrity , and determination were beyond doubt ” and that she “ leaves a towering legacy , and all who seek justice mourn her loss .”
As bitterly divided as the Country seems , at least we lawyers who value the rule of law can agree about what a great lawyer and human being she was . We usually think of Ginsberg as a D . C . Circuit Judge or a Supreme Court Justice . But she was a tireless advocate before that .
In my area of practice , discrimination law , she brought a series of cases before an all-male Supreme Court in the 1970s — for example , Frontiero v . Richardson ( 1973 ), Weinberger v . Wiesenfeld ( 1975 ), and Duren v . Missouri ( 1979 )— where she strategically chipped away at the strictures of sex discrimination wherever found . In doing so , she not only took great strides to end this discrimination , but she also showed us how the law must evolve in response to society and our times and how we as lawyers must effect that evolution .
This evolution is often a messy business . So we would do well to keep uppermost in our hearts and minds the Hebrew scripture hanging in her chambers that still calls us to our feet : “ Justice , justice you shall pursue .” ( Dt . 16:20 ). Notorious , indeed .
Craig Cleland Atlanta Bar Association President
4 August / September 2020