Edward V. Sparer Symposium
The Sparer Symposium commemorates the life and work of the late Edward V. Sparer, Professor of Law and Social Policy.
Description
At the heart of TPIC’s public interest program is the annual Sparer Symposium planned by the Toll Public Interest Scholars each year. The Symposium brings together legal academics and practitioners to provide insight into the dynamic relationship between scholarship and practice in the area of poverty law, merging theory and practice. Students and alumni attend panels and meet with speakers, delving deeply into important issues of our time.
History
Sparer’s work combined a passionate concern about the 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 and then 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.
Past Sparer Symposia:
(Click on the image to see details of event)
2019-2020: 
2006-2007: “War: International Judicial Responses to Violence”
Keynote: Juan Mendez, United Nations Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide
2005-2006: “Civil Gideon: Creating a Constitutional Right to Counsel in the Civil Context”
Keynote: Michael Greco, President, ABA
2004-2005: “Drug Policy Reform: In the Courts and in the Streets”
2003-2004: “Unknown”
2002-2003: “Terrorism and the Constitution: Civil Liberties in a New America”
2001-2002: “Public Interest Litigation”
2000-2001: “Social Movements & Legal Reform”
1999-2000: “Unlock America: Prisons and Policing in the 21st Century”
Keynote: Angela Y. Davis, Professor, University of California at Santa Cruz
1998-1999: “Welfare Reform: A War on Poverty or the Poor?”
Keynote: Lucy A. Williams, Professor, Northeastern Law School, “Welfare and Legal Entitlements: The Social Roots of Poverty”
1997-1998: “Civil Rights in the 21st Century: Resurrection or Requiem?”
Keynote: Andre Dennis, Esquire
1996-1997: “Unknown”
1995-1996: “Unknown”
1994-1995: “Crime and Punishment: The Criminal Justice System in the 1990’s”
Keynote Dialogue: Alvin J. Bronstein, Executive Director, National Prison Project of the ACLU Foundation and Joseph McGettigan, Chief Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Criminal Investigation and Prosecution Section
1993-1994: “Human Rights in Urban America”
1992-1993: “Legal Services: Confronting New Realities”
Keynote: Honorable Patricia M. Wald
1991-1992: “Visions Confronts Reality: Issues in Housing & Homelessness in the 90’s”
1990-1991: “Kids in Crisis: Opportunities for Change”
1989-1990: “Brave New Workplace: Exploring the Legal Landscape”
Keynote: Ralph Neas, “Civil Rights: Where We Are, Where We Are Going”
1988-1989: “Unknown”
Keynote: Peter Hearn ’61, Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association
1987-1988: “Privacy and the Public Interest”
Keynote: Professor Rhonda Copelon, City University of New York
1986-1987: “Unknown”
1985-1986: “Law, The Family, and Social Change”
Keynote: Kitty Kolbert, attorney/ lobbyist for the Women’s Law Project of Philadelphia
1984-1985: “Health Care and Justice! Practicing in the Public Interest”
Keynote: Arnold Relman, Editor of the The New England Journal of Medicine
1983-1984: “Community Empowerment Through Public Interest Law”
Keynote: Shirley Chisholm, former New York Congresswoman
*1982-1983: “New Approaches to Law in the Public Interest”
Keynote: Father Robert F. Drinan, former member of US House of Representatives
*1981-1982: “The Future of Public Interest Law and Practice”
Keynote: Charles Halpern, Dean-designate of Queens (NY) Law School
*The Sparer Symposium was originally titled ‘The Public Interest Law Conference.’ In 1984 it was renamed to commemorate the life and work of late professor and tireless advocate for the poor, Edward V. Sparer.