Zack Announces American Bar Academy; Grads to Get Loaded iPods #ABAChicago

Zack addresses ABA House.

Incoming ABA President-Elect Stephen Zack, a partner in the Miami office of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, called on the ABA to create an innovative program of civic education that he called the American Bar Academy.

Zack, who begins his one-year term as president-elect at the end of the annual meeting, said the program will take place in high schools nationwide over the course of the President’s Day weekend.

Each school will be asked to select 30 students to participate—half of whom must be minorities. They’ll be taught by lawyers in their area, using a curriculum designed by the ABA and other legal groups, he said.

The academy will cover “everything from My Cousin Vinny to the Bill of Rights,” he said. Each of the students will also work for one day in an area law firm. And at that end of that day, they’ll receive an iPod that includes the text of the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution, he said.

“We’ll ask them to read the Declaration on the Fourth of July to their friends, family and classmates,” he said.

Zack did not say when the program will begin. Zack is set to become ABA president in August 2010.

The ABA Journal will be posting updates throughout this final day of business for the ABA policy-making House of Delegates at ABAJournal.com and our Twitter feed. The House session will also be webcast at www.totalwebcasting.com/live/aba.

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