Nancy Bergeson Ardent Advocate Lecture Series 2026
July 16, 2026
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
Peggy Nagae is a third-generation Japanese American (Sansei) who grew up on a farm in Boring, Oregon. Her family’s incarceration in World War II, childhood poverty, and “coming of age” in the 1960s with the Vietnam War protests, feminist movement, and Asian American student movement, informed her commitment to and vision for justice.
She started her legal career as a Reginald Heber Smith Community Fellow at Multnomah County Legal Aid doing civil rights litigation, then as the senior criminal trial attorney at the Urban Indian Council (now known as the Multnomah Defenders Inc.), and in her own private practice as a litigator. She then served as the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Oregon School of Law, a litigator at Betts, Patterson and Mines in Seattle, Washington, and as the owner of Peggy Nagae Consultants, where she focused on leadership, strategic change initiatives, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Her accomplishments include serving as the lead counsel for Minoru Yasui, reopening his WWII Supreme Court case in 1983 and successfully overturning his original conviction (along with Korematsu v. United States and Hirabayashi v. United States). She also spearheaded Yasui’s nomination for a Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he was awarded, posthumously, from President Obama in 2015. She has been involved in the Japanese American Citizens League Social Justice Committee working on issues as birthright citizenship, the Alien Enemies Act, and alien land laws. In addition, she is the co-chair of the Black Reparations and Solidarity campaign for Tsuru for Solidarity.
Emcee – TBA
Location — World Trade Center: Outdoor Plaza (121 SW Salmon Street, Portland)
Program
4:00p Doors open & reception in memory of Nancy Bergeson and a celebration of defense attorneys
5:00 Peggy Nagae presents
6:00 Lecture adjourns.
Please stay for more food, talk and libations
Sponsors – TBA
Program subject to change.
Location
World Trade Center: Outdoor Plaza (121 SW Salmon Street, Portland)
World Trade Center: Outdoor Plaza (121 SW Salmon Street, 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.