John Minor Wisdom Awards: 2008 Award Recipients

Jayne Fleming

Jayne E. Fleming is a full-time Pro Bono Counsel based in the Oakland office of Reed Smith LLP. She serves as the firm’s West Coast Pro Bono Coordinator and is Leader of its Human Rights Team. Throughout her eight-year career at the firm, Jayne has made a career of representing refugees facing deportation, and other people in high-stakes asylum and human rights cases, where life, literally, hangs in the balance. Jayne has represented more than a dozen clients in asylum cases, and supervised the representation of more than two dozen more.  In 2008, Reed Smith has already won two asylum cases—its 16th victory since January 2007. A longtime supporter of human rights organizations throughout the country, Jayne is a member of the Executive Committee of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and the International Law Section of the American Bar Association.  She has authored amicus briefs for the Lawyers’ Committee, Public Counsel Law Center of Los Angeles, the American Immigration Law Association, and Rocky Mountain Survivors Center of Denver. She also frequently mentors others on asylum law cases, speaks to non-legal audiences about human rights issues, and conducts training seminars on asylum law issues. She has also testified before the San Francisco Human Rights Commission on legislation impacting refugees, and she has published numerous articles on human rights issues. Ms. Fleming received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law in 2000. She also holds a degree, with highest honors, in Political Science from UC, Berkeley.

Jared Genser

Jared Genser is an attorney in the Global Government Relations Group of DLA Piper LLP in its Washington, D.C. office, where his work concentrates on public international law and human rights.

In 2006, Jared led a team of over 20 lawyers commissioned by former Czech Republic President Václav Havel, former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel to produce the report Failure to Protect: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in North Korea. In 2005, he led a team of DLA Piper lawyers who were commissioned by President Havel and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town Desmond Tutu to produce the report A Threat to the Peace: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma. Since that report’s release, the situation of Burma has been voted on to the formal agenda of the Security Council and discussed numerous times in that body, culminating in the United States tabling a resolution on that country.

Independently, Jared is also founding president of Freedom Now (www.freedom-now.org), an all-volunteer nonprofit organization which seeks to free prisoners of conscience around the world through legal, political, and public relations advocacy efforts. Freedom Now has already helped secure the release of over a half-dozen prisoners from countries such as Burma, China, Egypt, Pakistan, and Vietnam. His current clients include the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma. He is also currently a Lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School teaching a seminar on the UN Security Council.

Jared is both a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He formerly worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company, the global strategy consulting firm. He received his B.S. from Cornell University and then attended Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a Raoul Wallenberg Scholar. Subsequently, he received a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he was an Alumni Public Service Fellow. Finally, Jared received his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School. He was previously awarded the Young Solicitors Group Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year (UK). He has published op-eds on human rights topics in such publications as the Washington Post, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Far Eastern Economic Review, The Nation (Bangkok), The Star (Johannesburg), and South China Morning Post.