Nancy Bergeson Ardent Advocate Lecture Series 2025
July 17, 2025
This is an outdoor event held in memory of Ardent Advocate Nancy Bergeson and celebrating defense lawyers. Nancy Bergeson was a career-long public defender whose legal acumen was matched only by her uncanny ability to empathize with her clients. She articulated her client's position to a jury or judge as if it was Nancy, herself, on trial for her life. In honor of her example, we have established the Nancy Bergeson Ardent Advocacy Series.
Registration (Members, please log in before registering!)$35 until July 1
$40 after July 1
$15 for lawyers admitted to bar five years or less and law students.
What's Included?Admission, reception, seminar materials, CLE credit, networking, relaxing, a great time!
Cancellations
Seminar cancellations made by noon on July 1 will receive a refund less a $10 cancellation fee. There are no refunds after July 1. No-shows receive the seminar material only. This event is not recorded.
Guest Lecturer
Alexis Hoag-Fordjour is an Associate Professor of Law and the Co-Director of the Center for Criminal Justice at Brooklyn Law School. Professor Hoag-Fordjour's scholarship focuses on criminal procedure, particularly the right to counsel, and how race and ethnicity have impacted the jurisprudence. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming in the New York University Law Review (twice), Michigan Law Review, Boston University Law Review, Fordham Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, and other publications.
The Constitutional Accountability Center selected Professor Hoag-Fordjour as the inaugural scholar-in-residence where she will spend the 2024-2025 school year. She serves on the boards of the Death Penalty Information Center and the Eighth Amendment Project, and is a member of the Reform Leadership Council at Vera Institute of Justice. A legal contributor for CNN, Professor Hoag-Fordjour frequently provides on-air analysis for MSNBC, Al-Jazeera, NPR, CBS, and other media outlets. In 2021, she was elected to membership in the American Law Institute.
Prior to joining the Law School, Professor Hoag-Fordjour served as the inaugural practitioner-in-residence at the Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil & Political Rights at Columbia University, and as a lecturer at Columbia Law School. She spent more than a decade as a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, primarily representing capitally convicted clients in federal post-conviction proceedings, with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Nashville, Tennessee. Professor Hoag-Fordjour graduated from Yale University and NYU School of Law, where she was a Derrick Bell Public Interest Scholar. She served as a law clerk for the late Judge John T. Nixon of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Emcee – TBA
Location — Standard Insurance Building: 2nd Floor Outdoor Terrace (900 SW 5th Ave., Portland)
Program
4:00p Doors open & reception in memory of Nancy Bergeson and a celebration of defense attorneys
5:00 Alexis Hoag-Fordjour presents
6:00 Lecture adjourns.
Please stay for more food, talk and libations
Sponsors
Forthcoming
Program subject to change.
Location
Standard Insurance Building: 2nd Floor Outdoor Terrace (900 SW 5th Ave., Portland)
Standard Insurance Building: 2nd Floor Outdoor Terrace (900 SW 5th Ave., Portland)
Registration Instructions
1. Click “Add New Registrant.” 2. Choose ticket type from the pull down menu. 3. Fill out name and email fields. 4. Click the yellow Save button at left - this adds the ticket to your cart. 5. Click Checkout.