EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT Noon on Thursday, 4/23 - Use Special Powers to Help People, DC Bar Told

WASHINGTON - April 21, 2015 - PRLog -- EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT  Noon on Thursday, 4/23
Use Special Powers to Help People, DC Bar Told
Responsibility To Do More Than Be Mouthpieces For Moneyed Interests

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 21, 2015):  The D.C. Bar will soon hear something it isn't often told, especially by one of its own: your special powers create a greater responsibility to do more "than simply serving as a mouthpiece for whomever can and does pay your high hourly fee."

        Those at the meeting, largely top administrative lawyers, will be told to use "your abilities as administrative lawyers to take advantage of the tremendous multiplication of powers agencies can provide to those who are especially skilled in administrative law," and to use them to benefit the public.

        The talk is entitled "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility,” a phrase made popular by Spiderman, but one adopted by Voltaire and Winston Churchill which actually comes from the Bible.

        The speaker will challenge the audience to do much more than an occasional pro bono project by explaining how his 3-page agency filing saved millions of lives, another was behind the 50% surcharge on smokers under Obamacare, a third first forced TV stations to employ Blacks as reporters, and still another - this time in Europe - helped slash cigarette advertising, ban smoking, and save millions more lives.

        As an additional challenge to lawyers who may think that as individuals they can't accomplish much, he will explain how students still in law school were able to start a new public health movement which has now spread around the world, succeeded in the environmental area where the Sierra Club had been unsuccessful, helped establish consumer representation at federal agencies, won over 100 anti-discrimination actions, and made headway against domestic violence where so many others had failed.

        They did all this and more, he will tell the lawyers, even before graduating, while working only part time, and without the many legal assistants, secretaries, researchers, etc. those in the audience enjoy.

        Law Professor John Banzhaf, who has been called "The Man Behind the Ban on Cigarette Commercials" and "a Driving Force Behind the Lawsuits That Have Cost Tobacco Companies Billions of Dollars," will explain how he went "From GEEK to  GIGOLO to a GOODDOER,” abandoning a lucrative career as a patent attorney to become "One of America's Premier Legal Activists," "the Area's Best-Known 'Radical' Law Professor," "Legal Academia's Instigator in Chief," and an "Entrepreneur of Litigation, [and] a Trial Lawyer's Trial Lawyer."

        Even more sparks are expected to fly when he quotes to them a recently deceased colleague and legal ethicist who was very critical of any lawyer who “does not voluntarily use his legal training and skills - not once, ever - to make the slightest change in the pervasive social injustice around him.”

        The presentation will be at Noon on Thursday, 4/23, at 1101 K St., NW, DC

JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2000 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/ @profbanzhaf