Lives Lived and Lessons Learned

Lives Lived and Lessons Learned 

Ours is a profession that celebrates accomplishment. One has only to peruse LinkedIn to see the impressive numbers of lawyers sharing their promotions, achievements, and awards. But what if all of that disappeared? What if we disappeared?

It happened in Austria in 1938. During the Nazi Anschluss, some 2,000 Austrian lawyers, mostly Jewish, were “disappeared.” It was almost as if they never existed. Almost. 

Thanks to the determination and hard work of an intrepid lawyer named Alix Frank-Thomasser and a team of dedicated researchers, their lives and stories are no longer unknown. Poring through archives and seeking out surviving historical documents, they not only successfully identified all those whose existence the Nazis sought to erase, but they managed to write biographies about who each of these individuals was, preserving a memory of their existence and sharing the impact of their lives. The result was the publication of a massive volume, Advokaten 1938. 

What does this work mean for Jewish Americans? What lessons might the American legal profession learn, both from what happened to those lawyers and the work of identifying who they were and telling their stories? 

Join the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession (“IILP”) as we mark Jewish American Heritage Month through a presentation by Alix Frank-Thomasser and a discussion about lessons and takeaways for the American legal profession. 

Speakers

• Alix Frank-Thomasser, Alix Frank Rechtsanwälte GmbH  
• David A. Lash, Managing Counsel for Pro Bono and Public Interest, O’Melveny & Myers LLP 
• Michael Berenbaum, Director, Sigi Ziering Institute and Professor of Jewish Studies, American Jewish University 
• Leslie Funk (Moderator) ERG Operations Manager, Google