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WSBA World Peace through Law Section
March 2013
March 29, 2013: 
Pro Bono Opportunities with Immigrants and Refugees: Yes You Can!
Sharing A Webcast
Join Us In This Free Webcast!
You are cordially invited to "Pro Bono Opportunities with Immigrants and Refugees: Yes You Can!", on March 29 at noon Pacific Time. The location is your office, home, or anyplace you have Internet reception, because thanks to the help of the Washington State Bar, this is a free webcast!
Jordan S. Wasserman, pro bono coordinating attorney at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, will moderate a panel of several other attorneys describing how you can make an immediate contribution to the cause of peace by providing pro bono services to refugees and immigrants. Based on their personal experience, you can let a Qualified Legal Service Provider (QLSP) such as NWIRP prescreen a client, provide training and back-office support, and generally support you with your pro bono case.
This webcast is available to Section members and colleagues anywhere in our state (indeed, throughout the world!) Although you cannot directly earn CLE credit by participating, in the program you will learn how you can earn up to six credits a year, every year, by working a pro bono case with a QLSP. Everybody wins!
Feel free to invite colleagues to view this program with you; they don't have to be Section members although if they like what they see they may join the Section! 
We hope to see you there!
 
June 22, 2013:
Litigating the Right to Peace

Luis Roberto Zamora Bolaņos
Luis Roberto Zamora Bolaņos
The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) World Peace Through Law Section invites you to "Litigating the Right to Peace," featuring Attorney Luis Roberto Zamora Bolaņos, on Saturday, June 22, 2013 from 7pm to 9pm at Seattle University School of Law.
Zamora Bolaņos is a trial lawyer based in Heredia, Costa Rica. While earning his law degree from the University of Costa Rica, he successfully litigated in that nation's Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court over the then-president's support of the invasion of Iraq. The government under President Pacheco had to withdraw its name from the list of countries the U.S. coalition advertised that supported the war in Iraq, because this "support" contradicted the Constitution of Costa Rica.
He has successfully litigated several other cases promoting the Right to Peace under Costa Rican and international law, and participated in numerous forums involving peace and law. Learn more at http://www.peaceasahumanright.org
This program is made possible through cooperation between this Section and numerous other groups, including the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and the Arizona State Bar Association World Peace Through Law Section
Two CLE credits applied for. 
In order to keep this event free and open to the public, section members will be needed to volunteer to help out; please contact Event Chair Martha Schmidt.
 
Robin Lindley:
A Primer on America's Forgotten "Nasty Little War"

 
We invaded, claiming no territorial ambitions, seeking only to liberate an oppressed people. We ended up in a nasty guerilla war, with torture, massacre, over 4,000 Americans dead and no-one knows how many hundreds of thousands of casualties on the other side.
What did America learn from the Philippine-American War of 1899 to 1902?
Nothing much, because we don't know about it. That's the conclusion you cannot escape after reading section member Robin Lindley's A Primer on America's Forgotten "Nasty Little War". Lindley interviews Gregg Jones, a Pulitzer-finalist investigative reporter, foreign correspondent and author of Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream.
The parallels between that war and several more recent ones, including the failures and success of peace movements opposing them, are all the more remarkable for the thoroughness with which they were scrubbed from history. Read the interview!
 
From the Chair: 
Casting Our Bread Across The WA
Watching Webinar Feeding Duck

I've never quite understood the maxim "Cast Your Bread Upon The Water." In my experience, if you throw bread on the water, the ducks get it, and it's not the best food for them at all.
Our Section's bread and butter is educational programming for peace through law. For practical reasons, our programs have always occurred in Seattle, which is a problem for the majority of Washington state lawyers who live outside Seattle. In addition, many of us who do live in the Emerald City still find it an additional chore to go downtown to meetings. Wouldn't it be nice if meetings came to us?
Yes. Yes it would!
With the able assistance of WSBA staff, our section is starting a monthly series of educational webcasts. You can receive these wherever you have web access, whether home, office, library, airport, coffeeshop or at the shore feeding ducks. You can submit questions for the speaker through email for near-realtime responses. Because the cost of these webcasts is borne within the Section budget, you can share them with colleagues: the more the merrier!
To every up there is a down. First, we want these events to happen on a predictable day of the month. Allowing for prior users of the webcasting facility, the most consistent date on which the lunch hour was available was the final Friday of each month. Thus we have to move this series to "Final Friday." Mark your calendars!
Of greater significance is the inherent conflict between the financial, educational and accreditation needs of Section members. We can have free access to webcasting facilities once a month, but arranging for CLE credit is a more elaborate and expensive process. For example, it requires careful monitoring of who is signed on for the whole program, and reporting attendance to the MCLE Board; with webcasts, it's not simply a matter of collecting signatures on paper. 
We had the choice of charging for attendance, limiting attendance to in-person programs, or giving up on applying for CLE credit for every program. Because most Section members do not benefit from Seattle-only programming, we chose not to apply for CLE credit for this webcast series.
But wait! (you may be thinking) I need free CLE credits! 
Fear not; we will still be doing free CLE, starting with a great program on June 22 (see above). More significantly: the world of free or low-cost CLE is very different today than only a few years ago. In the past three years, there have been over 100 free CLE events in Washington State and you could access over 500 (not a misprint!) free CLE webcasts. This is in addition to dozens of credits available to you through WSBA's Public Service Program! If your concern is raw credit, that's a valid concern indeed and our Section should continue to promote free or low-cost CLE when we or others provide it. But to serve our members and the public, is it not better that we concentrate on our more unique contribution: promoting Peace Through Law?
Let us cast our bread across WA; it will come back manyfold! --- REW
 

This is a publication of a section of the Washington State Bar Association. All opinions and comments represent the views of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by WSBA, its officers or agents. 

In This Issue
* Pro Bono Opportunities with Immigrants and Refugees: Yes You Can!
* Litigating the Right to Peace
* A Primer on America's Forgotten "Nasty Little War"
* Casting Our Bread Across the WA
"I am an anti-imperialist.
I oppose putting the eagle's talons on any other land
." 
- Mark Twain.
Section
Leadership

Chair
Randy Winn

Chair-Elect
Nandini Rao

Immediate Past Chair
Patricia Paul

Secretary-Treasurer
Jana Heyd

Executive Committee
Chalia Stallings-Ala'ilima
Lisa von Trotha


Newsletter
Randy Winn

Board of Governors Liaison  
Dan Ford


Contact Us!
http://www.wsba.org/Legal-Community/Sections/World-Peace-Through-Law-Section
- or -
WSBA Service Center
800-945-WSBA (9722)
206-443-WSBA (9722)
Images (c) Constant Contact, Wikimedia, WSBA. Used with permission.