In This Issue:

October 1999 -- Vol. 28, No. 2

New SBA Vice Chair-Elect, Delegates to Work for Student Interests

For six years, Maurene Cato-Perry had her hands full as a police officer on the streets of Dallas. With that background, she should have no trouble with her new role as the Law Student Division’s vice chair for student bar associations in the 2000-2001 term.

Cato-Perry, a second-year student at Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minn., was elected during the ABA’s 1999 annual meeting to represent law student governments at the nation’s ABA-accredited law schools. She will serve as vice chair/SBA-elect until her full term starts in August 2000. The current vice chair/SBA is David Jordan, a third-year student at the University of Oklahoma Law Center.

In addition to her work as a police officer, Cato-Perry brings an understanding of the grassroots work that takes place in law student governments across the country. “I am one of you,” she told an assembly of SBA presidents during a candidate round-robin session. Extremely active in campus affairs both through the SBA and as secretary of the Black Law Student Association, Cato-Perry was selected as her SBA’s 1999 member of the year and will serve as that organization’s president this year.

In her address to SBA presidents, Cato-Perry emphasized the importance of coordinating action between the Division and the individual SBAs, to maximize effect and conserve scarce resources.

Also during the annual meeting, the entire Law Student Division Assembly—SBA presidents and ABA representatives from every ABA-accredited law school present—chose three delegates to represent law students before the House of Delegates, the ABA’s policy-making body.

The Division wasted no time in putting these students to work. Elected on Friday, named on Saturday, and trained on Sunday, by Tuesday afternoon the 1999-2000 team of delegates had been sworn in before the House of Delegates and was hard at work laying the ground- work for the Division’s upcoming agenda.

Arthur Cutler, a third-year student at Michigan State University, Detroit College of Law, brings legislative experience to his role as delegate to the ABA’s “legislative” branch. After completing his undergraduate degree at Morehouse College in 1996, Cutler went to work for U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.).

“I propose a three-part agenda of education, communication, and representation,” Cutler said in his campaign speech. He is active in both his circuit and his school, serving as the 6th Circuit lieutenant governor for diversity and working as a member of the BLSA. Last year, he was one of two 2L representatives to the Detroit College of Law SBA.

Angela Karras, a third-year student at Indiana University School of Law, demonstrated an in-depth knowledge and enthusiasm for the ABA during the candidate round-robins. Last year, Karras drummed up new membership support as the 7th Circuit’s lieutenant governor for membership. This year, she was appointed as the circuit’s executive lieutenant governor. She also represents the Division as liaison to the ABA’s Forum on Communications Law.

“A Division delegate is an ambassador to the ABA from the LSD,” Karras explained. “To be an effective ambassador to the House of Delegates, one must have a knowledge of the innermost workings of one’s ‘home country’—the LSD.”

Terry Nealy, a second-year student at the University of Florida College of Law, came to law school fresh out of the Air Force. His most unique tour of duty while in the service (as recounted in Student Lawyer, March 1999) was in the White House, where he worked in the president’s Emergency Operations Center for three years. Arriving at law school in August 1998, Nealy immediately established an effective operations center there, too. By October, he was the chair of an impeachment symposium sponsored by the school’s ABA chapter, where he brought together a diverse group of law professors to discuss the criminal, constitutional, and sexual harassment aspects of President Clinton’s impeachment.

“A national delegate must hear the voice of students and then advocate for those students, whether attending a Board of Governors meeting or addressing the entire Association,” Nealy said in his campaign address. •

Brandon Bigelow