THE ALUMNI Andrew Ferguson L'00 Chandra Bhatnagar L'01 Cathy Carr L'79 Karen Peltz Strauss L'81 Langer & Grogan Paula Dow, L'80

A darkened jail cell crystallized Andrew Ferguson's crusade for constitutional literacy. Talking to an 18-year-old boy locked up on a gun charge, Ferguson, L'00, realized the disconnect between the law he'd studied and the life juvenile delinquents lived. "I don't understand this Fourth Amendment that you say protects me," the boy told him. "That's your law, not my law."

No one had ever talked to the boy about the rights granted him under the Constitution. Ferguson's effort to explain the law's relevance tripped a light in the boy's head. "In an otherwise disempowered situation — locked up, separated from his family, facing longer incarceration — he left (our meeting) understanding something more about his rights," Ferguson says. "That gave him more power."