Thread: American Bar Association to study Hispanic legal issues

American Bar Association to study Hispanic legal issues
BY FABIOLA SANTIAGO
fsantiago@MiamiHerald.com

In an unprecedented move to address the legal issues of Hispanics in the United States, the 400,000-member American Bar Association -- under the new leadership of Stephen N. Zack, a Cuban-American lawyer from Miami -- will announce Monday the creation of the Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights.
The ABA commission, to be headed by Miami lawyer César L. Alvarez, also a Cuban-American, will hold public hearings in major U.S. cities with Hispanic populations to study whether the legal system is addressing the needs of the country's largest and fastest-growing minority.

``We need to find out the facts and we need to see how the system is working or not working to make sure that Hispanics are fully integrated and treated equally within our justice system,'' said Zack, who will make the announcement when he officially becomes the ABA's first Hispanic president at the group's annual convention in San Francisco.

A number of Hispanics in a cross-section of fields will be named in the coming weeks to the new commission, Zack and Alvarez said.

After the public hearings are held and the legal issues studied, the findings would be culled into a report similar in scope to the one issued earlier this year by the ABA's Commission on Immigration. That report, circulating in Washington D.C., proposed an overhaul of the deportation system under the Justice Department.

``The ABA is obviously the premier organization for lawyers in United States,'' Alvarez said. ``It carries a lot of weight.''

A report on the legal rights and responsibilities of Hispanics ``can be a pretty important source of information particularly in this period of time when there's a lot of rhetoric and misinformation floating in the market place,'' said Alvarez, of the law firm Greenberg Traurig. ``I've been working on these issues all of my life, not only with Hispanics, but making sure that others get to have at least the chance of living the American dream that I've had the opportunity to live. I'm knocking down barriers and making sure people have a shot.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/07/1 ... ink=fbuser

Here's a great comment from the comment section:

I am constantly amazed by Committees which investigate the legal rights of this group or that group, what I am waiting for is the group which investigates how the legal rights of the majority of Americans, without regard to race, color, creed, age, sex, national origin or sexual preference, are being taken away from them by all of these special exceptions.

I'm knocking down barriers and making sure people have a shot

Knocking down barriers? Like what...the rule of law.

This is merely the shifting of resources by the ABA to put more bodies into the thuggish racialist shakedown of the rest of America...More money is needed here. More money is needed there. Blah blah blah...

I don't know why but after reading this I'm laughing so hard,
tears are rolling.
Thanks Miami lawyer César L. Alvarez, AKA Cuban-American. I needed a good laugh.