Summer Book Club Selection Leads to Judicial System Refresher
UW Impact, along with the UW Alumni Association and UW Bookstore, continued our summer book club program partnership in 2021. This program began four years ago as a way to bring together UW alums from different political and philosophical backgrounds to read common books. We hoped to challenge one’s thinking, encourage civic dialogue, civic engagement and reflect statewide perspectives.
This year, UWAA book club members selected the fictional political thriller While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams. The book is apolitical, but the political landscape is a divided one, in which the Supreme Court Justice has the swing vote in a controversial case. The law clerk is then left to solve a mystery that will change the country’s future.
This book gave UW Impact a great opportunity to partner with the UW School of Law to host Civics 101: The Judicial System. This event reminded people of the function of the judicial system, its powers and limitations, and to get a glimpse into the lives of judges and clerks. We learned of the necessary comradery between judges and their clerks and other enlightening tidbits with a delightfully engaging panel.
Panelists included:
- Chief Justice Steven González from the Washington State Supreme Court
- And our UW Law alumni:
- Caesar Kalinowski, ’17, current attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine, former extern for Justice González, former clerk for Judge Tallman on Ninth Circuit
- Michelle Saperstein, ‘19, a law clerk at the Washington State Court of Appeals with Judge Coburn, former law clerk for Judge Bill Bowman & for Justice Mary Yu
- The Honorable Dean Lum, ’83, from King County Superior Court
- Moderated by Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Endowed Professor of Law at the UW School of Law
Find the recording here: https://www.washington.edu/alumni/uw-alumni-book-club/