James Madison College at Michigan State, Take A Bow

MSU's James Madison College is a residential college that prepares its students for law school, graduate study, decision-making roles in public and private enterprise, and careers in government, media, politics, social services, public administration, education, business and industry, and the foreign service. Its webpage declares, "There isn't an important issue in the world today that our students and alumni are not studying and working to solve." For the record, one of those issues is equal access to justice, and three dynamic James Madison-trained problem-solvers were in the spotlight last Thursday at the United States Supreme Court.  They accepted the ABA's prestigious Grassroots Advocacy Award for the work of their organizations, the State Bar of Michigan and the Texas Supreme Court. For the State Bar of Michigan, SBM President Julie Fershtman, who began her college career at James Madison, and SBM Director of Governmental Relations Elizabeth Lyon, '02, shared the honors.  Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, '85, represented the Texas Supreme Court. And that's not the end of the story. Back home in Lansing, another James Madison grad, Greg Conyers, the State Bar's director of diversity and inclusion, plays an important role in State Bar public policy development.