Elizabeth (Lisa) Brown, '86, says she came to the Law School mainly because all the lawyers she spoke with said it was the best. The intellectual foundation she built there has supported her entire career.

"I was immediately taken by the intellectual environment, by the Socratic method," says Brown. "The tone was set with that first course, Elements of the Law, which examined the values and philosophy underlying the law and demonstrated how law shapes the nature of our society."

The topics of the course remain vital today for Brown in her current role as Executive Director of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, a national nonprofit organization of law students, professors, lawyers and judges with over 100 chapters on law school campuses (including the University of Chicago) and in cities across the country.

"Our organization serves as a counterbalance to conservative organizations such as the Federalist Society," Brown says. "We want to counter the dominant vision of American law today and ensure that the fundamental principles of human dignity, individual rights and liberties, genuine equality and access to justice assume their rightful central place in American law."

Brown says that even though the Law School has a conservative reputation, her experience was quite different. "The emphasis was not on a particular point of view, but on the importance of defending your point of view in the strongest way possible, with rigorous analysis. It was about the interplay of ideas, the debate. That is what makes American law and democracy strong."

Brown's advocacy work is a natural outgrowth of a career built around the interplay of law, politics, and policy. She came to ACS from Relman & Associates, a civil rights firm in Washington, D.C. Previously she was Counsel to Vice President Al Gore from Fall 1999 through January 2001, and Deputy Counsel from 1997 through August 1999. In addition to advising the Vice President and his staff on legal matters, she handled civil rights issues, served on the executive board of the President's Committee for Employment of People with Disabilities, and worked closely with the Vice President's Domestic Policy Office on a variety of legislative initiatives. Before that, she served as attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. Prior to government service, Brown was a partner in the Washington, D.C. firm Shea & Gardner, where, in addition to working on litigation and business transactions, she did extensive pro bono work.—C.A.