Sparer Symposium

Since 1984, the Edward V. Sparer Symposium has been one of the Law School’s cornerstone events. By focusing on urgent social justice issues of our time, the Sparer Symposium commemorates the life and work of the late Edward V. Sparer, Professor of Law and Social Policy. The Symposium brings together academics, practitioners, community members, activists, and organizers to provide insight into the dynamic relationship between scholarship and practice in the area of poverty law.

42nd Annual Edward V. Sparer Symposium

The 42nd Annual Edward V. Sparer Symposium was held on Friday, February 10, 2023 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm EST.

The symposium, Democracy from the Ground Up: The Power of People-Centered Advocacy, examined the fragile state of our democracy. Through interdisciplinary conversations with experts, activists, and scholars from across the country, we investigated alternative modes of organizing and how the power of the collective can protect our fracturing democracy. This symposium took the form of moderated panels on voting rights, state and local elections, labor organizing, and the future of organizing and legal strategy.

Snapshots from the 2023 Sparer Symposium

Edward V. Sparer was a professor at the law school from 1969 until his death in 1983. Sparer’s work combined a passionate concern for the economically poor with intellectual rigor and a profound conviction that the problems of poverty are solvable.

In 1983, he founded Mobilization for Youth Services, the first neighborhood legal services program, followed by the Columbia Center on Social Welfare and Policy and Law, the first national support center for legal services. In 1984, the first Sparer Symposium was organized to honor Professor Sparer. With the support of TPIC, each year the Sparer Symposium is organized by 2L Toll Public Interest Scholars.