"Attorney Speech and the First Amendment" will be vigorously debated at a seminar to be held on Friday, September 22, 2000, during the State Bar of Michigan's Annual Meeting at the Cobo Center in downtown Detroit. The program, sponsored by State Bar of Michigan, the Institute of Continuing Legal Education, and the State Bar's Senior Lawyers Section, will be held from 1:45-4:00 p.m. on Level 1 of the Cobo Center, Room W1-52.

Professor Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School, a prominent legal theorist, will conduct the session and moderate a panel of lawyers, judges, media persons, and bar leaders on issues that develop when lawyers publicly criticize judges or resort to the media in pending cases.

Using a series of hypothetical cases drawn loosely from real life experience, Professor Ogletree will lead a discussion addressing permissible restraints, if any, under the First Amendment that may be imposed on attorney speech under applicable ethical rules and the options open to the organized bar and the individual attorney to respond.

Panel members will include:

• Kary L. Moss - Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union
• Hon. Avern L. Cohn - US District Court, Eastern District of Michigan
• Thomas G. Kienbaum, Kienbaum, Opperwall, Hardy & Pelton, PLLC.
• Jeffrey Hadden - Editorial Page Editor, Detroit News
• Richard L. Cunningham - Attorney at Law
• Lucille S. Taylor - Legal Counsel to Governor Engler
• Kenneth M. Mogill - Mogill, Posner & Cohen
• Trevor Coleman - The Detroit Free Press
• Hon. Patricia J. Boyle - Former Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court
• Reginald M. Turner - Clark Hill
• Peter H. Ellsworth - Dickinson Wright PLLC
• Bruce W. Neckers - Rhoades, McKee, Boer, Goodrich & Titta
• Carl J. Marlinga - Macomb County Prosecuting Attorney

The public can register with CLE and pay a fee the day of the program at the Cobo Center Exhibit Hall, Level 2, Room W2-60. Contact Judy Clark at the State Bar of Michigan, 800-968-1442, extension 6322 for further registration information.