Named in honor of Norman Amaker, a beloved Indiana law professor who dedicated his life to civil rights and racial justice, the inaugural Amaker Retreat, held in March 2002, was organized around the theme “Ground Zero is Everywhere There is Poverty: Ensuring Rights, Liberties & Opportunities In the Current Anti-Terrorist Climate.”

The Amaker Retreat offers students, faculty, and practitioners from the Midwest an opportunity to gather together to examine public interest issues.



Like the Cover Retreat, the purpose of the Amaker Retreat is to offer public-interest minded law school students an opportunity to break the isolation by meeting and networking with other students from around the country. Not only does this provide students with a network while in school, it provides the foundation for a professional network to support their public interest ambitions later.
 
Students also get to interact with lawyers, legal academics, and other professionals who can offer guidance and act as role models for the variety of ways in which one can serve the public interest. By putting together students, faculty, and practitioners, the Retreat offers a chance to examine legal education to assure that what occurs in the classroom prepares students for a career in public interest law.

Lastly, the Retreat can spawn creative ways to approach using law as an instrument for social change.

The themes of past Amaker Retreats include:

2003 “Building Community: Finding Support and Resources for Social Change”
2004 “Access to Justice”
2005 “Human Rights in the 21st Century.”
2006 “Injustice and the Impoverished”
2007 “Holistic Justice”
2008 "Recommitment to Social Change: Where You Were, Where You Are, Where You are Going"

For fuller descriptions of each Amaker Retreat, go to the Equalizer portion of the website, where annual reports on each public interest retreat are published.

The Amaker Retreat is currently being relocated.  Check this page for updates on location and dates for the next Amaker Retreat.