How Can You Defend Those People? And Other Questions of Humanity, Humility, and the Humanities
Every criminal defence lawyer hears, often repeatedly, the question, “How can you defend those people?” It’s an important question, not just for lawyers but for every citizen of societies that claim to value liberty. Dean Strang, (defence attorney for Steven Avery in the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer), will explore some overlooked considerations that the question raises in the hope of aiding lawyers and other citizens alike come to their own answer. He will connect that common question and its answers to our individual and collective humanity, to humility and its relation to liberty, and to the ways in which legal education might help to form citizen-lawyers best equipped to answer that question.
Dean Strang is a noted US criminal defence lawyer. He practices in Madison, Wisconsin, as a shareholder in StrangBradley, LLC. He was Wisconsin’s first Federal Defender and has argued in the United States Supreme Court, five federal circuits, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The Peter Brett Memorial Lecture Series Peter Brett (1918-1975), appointed Senior Lecturer at the Law School in 1955, Reader in 1961, Hearn Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne from 1963 to 1964 and Professor of Jurisprudence from 1964 until his death, was distinguished by both his scholarship in criminal law and legal philosophy, and his determination to contest injustice in the courts.
