Justice John Paul Stevens, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, will address the 1999 State Bar of Michigan Annual Meeting. The Bar's 64th Annual Meeting will be held September 15-17 in Grand Rapids. Justice Stevens will speak at the September 15 luncheon. The luncheon is co-hosted by the Michigan Lawyers Auxiliary.

"We are thrilled that Justice Stevens has accepted our invitation to keynote our annual meeting," said Elaine Charney, chairperson of the Annual Meeting Coordinating Committee. "It is a great honor that the justice selected by Michigan's only President, Gerald Ford, will be the first sitting Supreme Court justice to speak at our annual meeting."

A native of Chicago, Stevens graduated from the University of Chicago in 1941 and from Northwestern University School of Law in 1947, after having served in the United States Navy during World War II. He served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Wiley B. Rutledge of the United States Supreme Court for the 1947-1948 term. Stevens practiced law in Chicago from 1949 to 1970, except for 1951, when he served as Associate Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Study of Monopoly Power. In the early 1950's, Stevens also taught at Northwestern and Chicago Universities. From 1953 to 1955, he was a member of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws. In 1969, he served as general counsel to a special commission appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to investigate the integrity of one of its judgments.

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon appointed Stevens to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ford on December 1, 1977 and confirmed by the Senate two weeks later.