The History of the Cover Retreat:

Shortly before his untimely death in the summer of 1986 at the age of 42, Robert Cover, a beloved law professor, legal scholar, and social activist at Yale Law School, circulated a memorandum among his colleagues on the faculty, advocating the creation of an annual public interest retreat for law students, law teachers, and public interest practitioners that would serve four related purposes:

First, it would be an opportunity to break the isolation. Students from around the country with common concerns would get to know one another and would realize our national scope of problems and professional opportunity.

Second, students would interact with lawyers, legal academics, and other professionals who might provide both practical guidance and role models for the variety of possible public service careers.

Third, the conference would be a forum for thinking about reform or change of legal education.

Fourth, the conference would provide students with a jump-off or starting place for the formulation of programmatic politics of legal change.

In Cover's words, "careers in public service work seem more exciting and worthwhile when there is a sense of movement -- of common effort and common commitment.”

Some of Bob's friends -- Milner Ball of the University of Georgia, Avi Soifer, then at Boston University and currently Dean of the University of Hawaii School of Law, and I, joined a short while later by Danny Greenberg, then Director of Clinical Programs at Harvard Law School and currently President and Attorney-in-Chief of the New York City Legal Aid Society, and the late Henry Schwarzschild, a long-time advocate of abolition of the death penalty -- decided to honor Bob's memory by organizing an annual public interest retreat as he had advocated.

The first Cover Retreat was held at Boston University's Sargent Camp, a rustic outdoor recreation center in Peterborough, New Hampshire, during the first weekend in March of 1988.

The Retreat has become an annual event, held at Sargent Camp during the first weekend of March.

Each year, the Retreat has been coordinated by students from a different law school, providing them the opportunity to learn how to organize such an event, to plan the program, and to select and invite public interest practitioners to be speakers and mentors. Over the years, students from Yale, Boston University, Boston College, Columbia, NYU, Touro, University of Connecticut, University of Pennsylvania, Dickinson, University of Maine, and other schools have organized the Retreat over the years.

Click here for a copy of the February 2009 bibliography of Robert Cover's work. 

Students also have chosen the themes for the Retreats, and the following examples show the range of their concerns:

     * 1992 "Correcting Politics: Pursuing Public Interest in Legal Education and Practice"

     * 1995 "Privilege and Power in Public Interest Advocacy"

     * 1997 "Without a Net: Public Interest Practice in a Mean-Spirited Age"

     * 2002 "Lawyering in Context: Exploring the Intersections of Law and Community"

     * 2004 "Confronting Challenges: Making Public Interest Work"

     * 2005 “How to Make the Interest Public”

     * 2006 “The Faces Behind the Cases”

     * 2007 “Lawyering for Social Change”

     * 2008 "Snow and Tell"

     * 2009 "Making Change"

     *2010 "Turning Point"

 The Cover Retreat allows a contemplative approach to pressing issues where the informality and beauty of the setting lends to a relaxed and revitalized examination.

 The Cover Retreat has inspired the development of the annual Trina Grillo Public Interest Retreat on the West Coast, and the annual Norman Amaker Public Interest Retreat in the Midwest; all three retreats receive support and sponsorship from SALT. The three retreats offer public interest-minded law students across the country opportunities to gather with other like-minded law students and with public interest practitioners to encourage and learn from one another, and to be inspired to become the next generation of public interest lawyers in America.

 Originally published by Stephen Wizner, Yale Law School SALT Equalizer (May, 2004), and expanded

March 2010 Update: The 2010 Cover Retreat, organized by the students at Western New England College of Law, was held Friday-Sunday, February 26-28, 2010, at Camp Sargent, Peterborough, NH.   Check back at a later date for more information about this event.

March 2009 Update: For the organizers of the twenty-second annual Robert Cover Retreat, there was a tone of sentimentality in the air as people arrived at Camp Sargent, just outside of Peterborough, New Hampshire.  This was purported to be the last year the Cover Retreat would be held at Camp Sargent, due to Boston University’s decision to close the facility.  For twenty-two years, Victor the chef had provided hearty and delicious meals.  For twenty-two years, Mark had effectively managed the facilities.  Certainly we appreciate their dedication to the magnificent Camp Sargent and their service to SALT.  

 With a recent change in management of Camp Sargent, the next Cover Retreat will indeed be held for the twenty-third year at beloved Camp Sargent. 

 This year’s Cover Retreat was organized by Heidi Pushard, a student at University of Maine School of Law.  She did a great job, helped by last year’s student coordinator, Ben Smilowitz, a 3L at University of Connecticut School of Law.  Over eighty people weathered rumors of a giant storm to attend this year’s Retreat.

Friday night after dinner began with a presentation by Ben Smilowitz, founder of Disaster Accountability Project (DAP), and Rafa Cancel-Vazquez, founder of Asociacion Nacional de Derecho Ambietal (National Environmental Law Association of Puerto Rico).  Ben and Rafa met through the

Echoing Green

fellows program.  Echoing Green is a social entrepreneurship funding program.  Ben, in his last year at UConn, explained how he put together the concept for DAP, got funding, and now has enlisted fellow students to work on the project.  Rafa told the story of how he organized students at University of Puerto Rico Law School into the first environmental law firm on the Island.  Both Ben and Rafa were charismatic and exciting speakers, prodding students on to follow their passions and make their passions their life’s work.

Everyone was ready to party and meet each other afterwards.

Saturday morning began with a talk by Steve Wizner, clinical professor Yale Law School, and one of the founders of the Cover Retreat.  To keep Cover’s legacy alive, a bibliography of his work was distributed and Steve explained who Robert Cover was and why he, Danny Greenberg, Milner Ball, and Avi Soifer began the Retreat twenty-two years ago.  In the words of Robert Cover: "careers in public service work seem more exciting and worthwhile when there is a sense of movement -- of common effort and common commitment.” Almost to illustrate this idea that law school students who are interested in public interest need to meet other students, faculty, and practitioners who are dedicated to these causes, a student from UConn admitted that she hadn’t known most of the UConn students who were attending the Cover Retreat this year.  She now has a local community of like-minded friends.  

Danny Greenberg, former President and Attorney-in-Chief, The Legal Aid Society, and currently the pro bono coordinator at Schulte Roth & Zabel spoke about doing work that means something, that makes a difference, so that as a lawyer, one loves his or her work.  That passion, along with being connected to other people dedicated to the public interest, helps get one through the disappointments and struggles.  

Saturday morning was broken up into two sets of workshops: Impact Litigation with Zach Heiden, Legal Director, Maine Civil Liberties Union and Ben Wizner, ACLU National Office, NYC; Indians and the Roberts Court, Ezra Rosser, Professor, American University College of Law; Protecting Children from ‘Friendly’ Prosecutors: The Representation of Juveniles with Mental Health/Competency Issues, Christopher Northrop, Professor, Juvenile Justice Clinic, University of Maine School of Law and Tina Schneider, Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, University of Maine; Legal Services, Danny Greenberg and Steve Wizner; Whistleblowing Law/Policy, Tom Devine, Government Accountability Project.  

The second set of workshops included: Public Sector Workers and Collective Bargaining Rights: Robin Alexander, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America; Forty Years of Suing the Police, Michael Avery, Suffolk Law School; Don’t Wait: How law school students can immediately engage in meaningful work pro bono, Hazel Weiser, SALT; Disability Rights, Linda D. Kalb, Director, California Legal Services Trust Fund Support Center Program Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF); Disaster Accountability: Improving FEMA and Red Cross after Katrina, Ben Smilowitz.

The lunch speaker was Ezra Rosser, American University, who added some humor to the Retreat.  The afternoon was reserved for rest, hiking, cross country skiing, and informal conversations.

After dinner, Brandt Goldstein from New York Law School spoke about his book “Storming the Court,” and Rafa led off the party in the lodge with salsa lessons for everyone.

Sunday morning began with a late breakfast and closing remarks from Steve Wizner, thanking everyone who had made twenty-two years of tradition so exceptional, along with Heidi and Maria Chvirko from Yale Law Schools clinical program.  Then the last set of workshops began: Public Defender Careers led by Paul Rudulf, Massachusetts Public Defender’s Office; Environmental law, William S. Eubanks, Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal, Washington, D.C. and Rafa Cancel-Vazquez; Educational Equity in the 21st Century, John Brittain, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law; Violence Against Women, Julie Ehrlich, Women’s Right’s Project and Jim Davis, Athens, GA.

As we packed our cars and began to depart, ahead of the winter storm that has blanketed the Northeast, we were reinvigorated from the Retreat with new connections, new ideas, and a renewed commitment to service to the public interest.