Mitchell Hamline Law Winter 2017

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ALUMNI NEWS

Jeff Anderson, left, with President and Dean Mark C. Gordon and Gordon’s wife, Anne Zweibel.

Mitchell Hamline, Jeff Anderson & Associates launch

Mitchell Hamline School of Law and Jeff Anderson & Associates announced a new initiative in September aimed at preventing child abuse through education and litigation. Funded with a $2 million gift from Anderson’s St. Paul firm, the Zero Abuse Project (ZAP) at Mitchell Hamline will build on the work of the school’s Child Protection Program, founded in 2013 by former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Helen Meyer ’83 (WMCL)— chair of the Mitchell Hamline Board of Trustees—and led by Associate Professor Joanna Woolman. ZAP will train professionals in trauma-informed care and help institutions prevent, recognize, and respond to child abuse. It will include a child advocacy clinic with experienced professionals who will be involved in research, developing and teaching courses, public policy change, and impact litigation.

President and Dean Mark C. Gordon praised the effort at a gala Sept. 23 in downtown St. Paul that was both a ZAP kickoff event and a celebration of the 70th birthday of Anderson, a 1975 William Mitchell grad. Anderson has not only identified flaws in the current child-protection system, he is also laying a foundation for a better one, Gordon said. “The Zero Abuse Project at Mitchell Hamline gives us an opportunity to involve students in impact litigation in the area of child abuse prevention. It enables us to educate professionals around the nation about how trauma-informed practices can improve outcomes for survivors and for victims. And it will support us as we work to attract undergraduate students from around the country who want to dedicate their own legal careers—and maybe, like Jeff Anderson, dedicate their lives—to preventing child abuse.”

“Jeff Anderson has always understood that institutions don’t protect children, programs don’t protect children, screening instruments don’t protect children. It is people who protect children, but they can only do so if they are highly trained,” said Victor Vieth ’87 (HUSL), director of the Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center. Anderson said the new project is inspired by, and dedicated to, survivors of sexual abuse, whom he has spent more than three decades representing. “You have taught us how to live a life of purpose,” he said to survivors, some of whom were in the room at the Sept. 23 event. “You give us strength. You give us hope. And it is with you and all those that stand with you and for you that we join in the Zero Abuse Project.”

For more information on the Zero Abuse Project, visit zeroabuseproject.org.

MITCHELL HAMLINE LAW

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