| District Judge Keith Ellison |
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Keith Ellison graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard. In his senior year, he was one of 32 Americans chosen as Rhodes Scholars to study at Oxford University. He graduated from Oxford with first class honors in law. After Oxford, he earned a law degree at Yale, where he was an editor of The Yale Law Journal. Following graduation, he clerked for Judge J. Skelly Wright on the D.C. Circuit, and then for Justice Blackmun.
While in private practice, Ellison was active in many public interest efforts including the representation of aliens seeking asylum in the United States. At the time of his confirmation to the bench, Ellison was president-elect of the Gulf Coast Legal Foundation which provided legal services to the disadvantaged. He also served as a director of the American-South African Scholarship Association which funded and awarded scholarships for deserving South African college students. For more than 20 years he has participated in, and is now a director of, Houston Achievement Place which offers housing and tutoring to at-risk youth, and is active in the EMERGE program which pairs promising public high school seniors with Houston professionals. Session 8:45am - 9:45am - What Trial Lawyers Really Really Need to Know, NOW: Recent and Anticipated Must-Reads from the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit |