On February 23, 2010 the Boston Lawyer Chapter cosponsored a panel of lawyers who contributed to a new book The Guantánamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison, Outside the Law, edited by Jonathan Hafet, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project and Mark Denbeaux, Professor of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law.

In addition to the editors, the panel featured Jerry Cohen, Partner, Burns & Levinson LLP (represented two detainees from Algeria and one from Palestine); Mark C. Fleming, Partner, WilmerHale (represented a detainee from Algeria); P. Sabin Willett, Partner, Bingham McCutchen LLP (represented eighteen Uighur detainees); Melissa Hoffer, Vice President and Director, New Hampshire Advocacy Center, Conservation Law Foundation (represented six Algerian detainees while at WilmerHale); and Doris Tennant, Partner, Tennant Lubell LLC (represented a detainee from Algeria).

Each of the panelists told a personal story about the difficulties of representing Guantánamo detainees and the reasons why they remain committed to this work so many years after it began. They answered questions from the audience about how the United States can protect the rule of law while addressing the very real problem of terrorism.

This event was cosponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the American Constitution Society Suffolk University Law School Chapter, the National Lawyers Guild Suffolk University Law School Chapter, NYU Press and the Suffolk University Law School ACLU.

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