Annual Summer Youth Institute (SYI) program was founded by Judge Nancy Joseph
MILWAUKEE–Attorney Jarrett Adams, founder of The Law Offices of Jarrett Adams, and author of Redeeming Justice, will speak at the 2022 Summer Youth Institute (SYI) program for middle and high school students on Thursday, July 28, 12:15-1:15pmCT at Marquette University Law School, 1215 W. Michigan St., Room 433B, Eckstein Hall.
Called Lunch Spotlight: Jarrett Adams, author of Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System, the talk aims to inspire young men and women from underserved communities to pursue careers in law and civil rights.
“As the gun violence in Milwaukee increases, we need to find ways other than incarceration to make communities safer and save the kids who are falling victims to gun violence,” said Adams, who spent almost 10 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. That experience inspired him to devote his life to fighting the injustices in the country’s legal system.
Judge Nancy Joseph founded SYI to give back and pay it forward. The U.S. magistrate judge, Eastern District of Wisconsin, developed the program for Milwaukee-area students who might not otherwise have exposure to legal careers. As noted in this Milwaukee Business Journal interview: “I did not come from a background of lawyers and judges,” said Joseph, the daughter of Haitian immigrants. “My introduction to the law was from teachers pointing me to something beyond my immediate circumstances.”
SYI is co-sponsored by Marquette Law School and the Eastern District of Wisconsin Bar Association. The program is designed to introduce middle and high school students from the City of Milwaukee to the legal system, expose them to legal careers, and provide them with practical tools for achieving their educational goals. The SYI is open to students who will enter the 8th, 9th, or 10th grade this fall.
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About Jarrett M. Adams, Esq.
Jarrett M. Adams is a top defense and civil rights attorney and author of Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System (Penguin Random House, 2021). Adams is the co-founder of the nonprofit Life After Justice. He created Life After Justice as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing wrongful convictions and building an ecosystem of support and empowerment for exonerees. In 2017, he launched the Law Offices of Jarrett Adams, PLLC. He practices in both federal and state courts throughout the country.
In Adams’ highly acclaimed first book, he talks about his fight toward exoneration after a wrongful conviction. The memoir follows the aftermath of reclaiming and rebuilding his life after justice and his drive to help other exonerees do it. Adams earned his Juris Doctorate from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He was awarded the National Defender Investigator Association Investigator of the Year award for his work with the clemency petition of Reynolds Wintersmith, ultimately granted by President Barack Obama.