Thoroughgood "Thurgood" Marshall was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-American justice. Prior to his judicial service, he was an attorney who fought for civil rights, leading the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Marshall was a prominent figure in the movement to end racial segregation in American public schools. He won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court, culminating in the Court's landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which rejected the separate but equal doctrine and held segregation in public education to be unconstitutional. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court in 1967. A staunch liberal, he frequently dissented as the Court became increasingly conservative.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many abortion laws, and caused an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication. The Supreme Court overruled Roe in 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion.
Abortion in Canada is legal throughout pregnancy and is publicly funded as a medical procedure under the combined effects of the federal Canada Health Act and provincial health-care systems. However, access to services and resources varies by region. While some restrictions exist, Canada is one of the few nations with no criminal restrictions on abortion. Abortion is subject to provincial healthcare regulatory rules and guidelines for physicians. No provinces offer abortion on request at 24 weeks and beyond, although there are exceptions for certain medical complications.
Peter Henry Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith,, is a British barrister who served as Attorney General for England and Wales and Attorney General for Northern Ireland from 2001 and 2007. His resignation, announced on 22 June 2007, took effect on 27 June, the same day that Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped down. Goldsmith was the longest serving Labour attorney general. He is currently a partner and head of European litigation practice at US law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and Vice Chairperson of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1931 by Eli Whitney Debevoise and William Stevenson, the firm was originally named “Debevoise, Plimpton & McLean”. Debevoise specializes in private equity, financial services transactions, private funds, and international arbitration. In 2021, the firm assisted the Democratic Party in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
David D. Cole is the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Before joining the ACLU in July 2016, Cole was the Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at the Georgetown University Law Center from March 2014 through December 2016. He has published in various legal fields including constitutional law, national security, criminal justice, civil rights, and law and literature. Cole has litigated several significant First Amendment cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, as well a number of influential cases concerning civil rights and national security. He is also a legal correspondent to several mainstream media outlets and publications.
Spencer A. Overton is an American lawyer, President of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and law professor at George Washington University Law School. He is a leading election law scholar, and is a tenured Professor of Law at George Washington University.
Above the Law (ATL) is a news website about law, law schools, and the legal profession. Established in 2006, the site is owned and published by Breaking Media.
Eric R. Dinallo is a partner and chair of the insurance regulatory practice at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and a member of the firm's Financial Institutions and White Collar & Regulatory Defense Groups. Formerly Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Counsel at The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, Inc. Formerly Superintendent of Insurance for New York State, he was nominated by Governor Eliot Spitzer and confirmed by the New York State Senate on April 18, 2007, as the 39th Superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department. On May 28, 2009, he announced his resignation and subsequently left state government service to become a visiting professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. On August 24, 2009, Dinallo announced that he was preparing for a possible campaign for the elected office of New York State Attorney General. He was defeated in the primary on September 14, 2010, by Eric T. Schneiderman, who went on to win the office in the general election.
Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP was a global law firm headquartered in New York City, United States. The firm was formed in 2007 through the merger of Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae. Dewey & LeBoeuf was known for its corporate, insurance, litigation, tax, and restructuring practices. Some of the firm's leaders were indicted for fraud for their role in allegedly cooking the company's books to obtain loans while hiding the firm's financial plight. At the time of its bankruptcy filing, it employed over 1,000 lawyers in 26 offices around the world.
Thane Rosenbaum is an American novelist, essayist, and Distinguished University Professor. He is the director of the Forum on Life, Culture, & Society, hosted by Touro College. Rosenbaum is also the Legal Analyst for CBS News Radio and appears frequently on cable television news programs.
Pamela Susan Karlan is an American legal scholar who was the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice from February 8, 2021, until July 1, 2022. She is a professor at Stanford Law School. A leading legal scholar on voting rights and constitutional law, she previously served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Voting Rights in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division from 2014 to 2015.
James G. Sokolove is an American attorney known for advertising legal services on television. Though he was the largest legal advertiser in the United States in 2007, Sokolove's firm acts only as a lead generator and does not currently try cases.
Howard University School of Law is the law school of Howard University, a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is one of the oldest law schools in the country and the oldest historically black law school in the United States.
The legality of abortion in the United States and the various restrictions imposed on the procedure vary significantly, depending on the laws of each state or other jurisdiction, although there is no uniform federal law. Some states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions; others permit it up to a certain point in a woman's pregnancy, while some allow abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. In states where abortion is legal, several classes of restrictions on the procedure may exist, such as parental consent or notification laws, requirements that patients be shown an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, mandatory waiting periods, and counseling requirements.
Eli Whitney Debevoise was a prominent New York lawyer who co-founded the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and periodically served in a variety of high-profile government positions.
William Edwards Stevenson was an American track and field athlete, lawyer and diplomat, who won the gold medal in the 4 × 400 metres relay at the 1924 Summer Olympics, and later served as the president of Oberlin College.
David W. Rivkin is an independent arbitrator affiliated with Arbitration Chambers. For more than 40 years, Mr. Rivkin practiced private and public international law at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where he served as co-chair of its International Dispute Resolution Group for more than 20 years and was a founder of its Business Integrity/ESG Group. He now serves as a full-time arbitrator and mediator, focusing on complex international commercial arbitrations and investor-state disputes.
Christine Bell, FBA, FRSE, is a legal scholar, specialising in human rights law. As of 2018, she is Professor of Constitutional Law and Assistant Principal at the University of Edinburgh.
June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a Louisiana state law placing hospital-admission requirements on abortion clinics doctors was unconstitutional. The law mirrored a Texas state law that the Court found unconstitutional in 2016 in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (WWH).
