Advocating A Hands-Off Approach (The American Lawyer)

    GOUNT[Y.MANIUENS by Lyle Denniston

illiant Evans ttltlk thc nrost
sensible route when he argued

!I 1)rrri.r v. IJtttrdcttrt'r'. a nrtior
case u ith historic significance: He
kept his argunlcnt sinrple. and his
prcsentation u'us clear and filrcetul.

1)rrli.r is the nrost important politi-
cal casc to conrc hetitre the Supreme
Court since the CtlLrrt first insisted a
quarter centurv ago ()n the One-per-
s()n. one-vote principle in districting.
l-he issue is whether gerrymander-
ing. a political tradition in America. is
unconstitutional. Evans wanted ttl
convince the Court thirt it is ntlt.

A name partner tn lndtanapolts s

Bose McKinney & lrvans. Evans
represents Republican leaders of the
lndianir legisluture who are trying lo
save a GOP plan that redistricted
both houses of the legislature tbllow-
ing the l9tl0 census. A special three-
.iudge t'ederal court struck down that
plan last December and ruled fbr the
first time ever that voters belonging
to the two ma.lor political parties are.
lus ii group. entitled lo protection
tiom discrimination. A partisan ger-
rymander aimed at such a group is
invalid. the federal court concluded.

Evans wasted no time getting to his
simplest points: Parlisirn gerryman-
dering is constitutional because ma-
jority rule. not proportional repre-
sentation. is what's legal. "ln our
system of government, where you
have majority rule. some people win.
some people lose." he said. "IW]ho
in this room could say how many Re-
publicirns and how many Democrats
should serve in the Indiana General
Assembly'? Those kinds ofjudgments
are inherently political. and it would
be almost impossible lirr a court to
come up with an acceptable stan-
dard. "

Evans knew that in order to win the
case. he would have to persuade the
Court that partisan disputes should
be left to politicians to resolve. Pick-
ing up on that. Justice William Rehn-
quist tested Evans to sce whether he
really meant to immunize all such
schemes. "even the most extreme
example. " Evans rcassured the
Court that he was talking about parti-
san gerrymanders between the two
major parties. not gerrymanders
aimed at minority or splinter groups
thirt "can't huve their views pre-
sented through the political pro-
cess." At Justice William Brennan.
Jr.'s urging. Evans made it clear that
he was challenging judicial review
only of partisan gerrymanders. not
racial gerrymanders. which the
Court has repeatedly lilund unconsti-

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Advocating
AHands-Offffioach

tutional.
E,vans was pressed most rigor-

ously by Justice l-ewis Powell. Jr.
Over and tlver again. Powell forced
Evans to firce the tull implications of
his argument that politicatl consider-
ations are inappropriate lbr a court to
review no matter how egregious the
political gerrymandering hecomes.
Asked Powell. "So. by gerrymander-
ing. one party could put the other
party entirely out of business-en-
tirely-if you were using the com-
puler. withoul discriminating against
the voters in the other party'1" With-
out hesitation. Evans said. "That is
true. I believe that where you have
two major parties. either party may
have the use of a computer. " (By us-
ing computers and detailed census
data. it is possible to draw election

how hard Boehm tried. and he did
try. he seemed unable to dispel the
impression that the Democrats
wanted a proportional share of the
seat s.

As the argument went on. it be-
came evident that Boehm wanted to
persuade the Court ofone thing only:
that the Indiana plan was simply "ar-
bitrary"-it singles out the Demo-
crats and has no.iustification behind it
except GOP advantage. His clients,
he said. "are entitled to be free fiom a
statute that arbitrarily harms us. That
is fundamental equal protection doc-
trine: any classification of citizens Iis
unconstitutionall. "

Boehm paid no attention to the un-
derlying issue of whether his client is
entitled to uny constitutional protec-
tion against discrimination based on

districts that are almost exactly equal
in population, but that have a strong
partisan tilt. Such districts do not run
against the Court's one-person, one-
vote principle.)

Theodore Boehm of Indianapolis's
Baker & Daniels. Evans's adversary,
represented the liustrated Indiana
Democrats pro bttno. Boehm came
prepared to argue that his clients had
"no remedy" but to go to court be-
cause they wouldn't have had any
luck if they'd fought the redistricting
in the legislature. Waxing colloquial,
he suggested, "lt is and was a useless
acl (o present to the fox a correclion
of the chicken coop guardian situa-
tion." Under the GOP plan, the Dem-
ocrats could command "a substantial
majority of the votes" in Indiana, he
argued. yet not be able to gain "a ma-
jority of the seats under tbreseeable
election returns. "

The justices were concerned
about where a ruling against partisan
gerrymandering could lead. "Under
your theory, it seems to me that al-
most any time a reapportionment or
redistricting by a state legislature oc-
curred. and the result was not close
to perfect proportional representa-
tion. that there would be a violation,"
Justice Byron White said. No matter

party allegiance. He seemed to imply
that there could be unconstitutional
arbitrariness without any proof that
partisan defeat or frustration was iI
constitutional wrong. In other words,
he was trying to finesse the question
of whether his clients had any right to
be in Court with a constitutional
complaint.

Justice Brennan tried to catch
Boehm on that, and suggested that if
partisan gerrymandering was not
subject to judicial review, there
would be no need to look into the Re-
publicans' motive or intent. The
Democrats ure a"target group" enti-
tled to protection against discrimina-
tion, just as blacks are, Boehm said.
The Indiana plan "is aimed at a cate-
gory of citizens. in this case those
aligned with the Democratic party.
and it does in fact very severely harm
them."

Justice Rehnquist persisted and
noted that those who voted for Dem-
ocrats would have their votes
counted in the ballot box the same
way as everyone else. But Boehm
said that the problem was the overall,
statewide effect of the GOP plan.
Viewed that way, he said, "the votes
of Democrats count for less in Indi-
ana in general." He started to go

back over some specifics of the Re-
publican plan, but Rehnquist inter-
rupted. "Should that encourarge us to
push the doctrine of Buktr v. ('urr
Iwhich paved the way tbrone person,
one vtllel heytlnd where il is now up-
plicable'?" hc asked. Iloehm said that
his plea "does not require any push-
ing." Democrats, too, are entitled to
equality, and the Indiana districting
map "enjoys no rational basis what-
ever," he said. "lt is purely and sim-
ply an eflbrt lo perpeluale a lransicnl
majority." Again. hc did not define
how that would conslitute a constitu-
tional wrong.

E,vans might have been better ad-
vised to pass up his rebuttal. Justice
White led him into embarrassing con-
cessions that some of the particular
district boundaries had no justifica-
tion behind them. Justice John Paul
Stevens got him to concede that "the
desire to maximize the political
strength of the majority party" could
not lbrm a "rational" basis for the
plan. His answers left the impression
that the plan was arbitrary because
he could not explain away the politi-
cal motivation. an obligation that he
had insisted the plan sponsors did not
have to meet in Court.

EXTRACURRICULAR PRAYER:
The Court, every lawyer irppearing
there knows, sits to decide legal and
constitutional issues. but John
Youngman, Jr., crafled his argument
in Bendcr v. Williumsprsrt Arcu
S<'ltool Di.rtri<'t as if only the facts
counted. It was a bold gesture and
may have been the smartest route.

Youngman. a partner at Candor,
Youngman, Gibson and Gault in Wil-
liamsport, Pennsylvania, is a former
member of the district school board
and is fighting a student prayer group
that wants to hold religious sessions
in the local public high school during
school hours.

The Bentlcr case raises tbr the first
time a conf licl between the free
speech rights of high school students
during the school day and the First
Amendment's ban on an "establish-
ment of religion" by government
action. The Third Circuit banned the
religious meetings last year and said
that although the students r1o have a
right of religious free speech, they
must yield it to the First Amend-
ment's establishment clause. Merely
allowing the meetings on school
property implied state sponsorship.
the appeals court ruled.

The case thus presents a clear-cut
constitutional question, but Young-
man and his opponent, James Smart,
Jr., who represented seven student
members of the so-called "Petros
Club," were taced with a Court that
seemed more interested in the facts
of the case. The justices asked how
the Williamsport school runs the
open periods during which the prayer
meetings were scheduled, and they
were interested in the role of teachers
supervising the student groups.

Youngman made much of the jus-
tices' interest in these factual details.
Early in his argument he began quot-
ing tiom the record contained in the
case's appendix. He immediately
made the point that any group ofstu-
dents that meets during the open pe-
riod must have a faculty adviser-
clearly implying that a religious club
would be overseen by a public em-
ployee, a violation of the establish-
ment clause. Such advisers. he

William Evans, representing the Indiana
GOP, argued that courts should steer

clear of partisan gerrymandering.
Political disputes should be resolved

by politicians, he maintained.



use their property for anything that
they want to'1"); about her stand on
the death penalty (She said she would
vote against it but "follow the law" as
a judge.); and whether she would be
an "activist" on the bench. Winner
says no one mentioned (r'irrglcs, but
one panelist asked her "whether, be-
cause I had spent all of my time rep-
resenting the underprivileged, I
thought I would have trouble being
fair to everybody else." Members of
the nominating panel who attended
the meeting either refused comment
or did not rcturn telephone calls.

Winner was not nominated. Shc is
reticent to discuss how Ginglc.r may

have influenced the panel's decision,
but says, "l have some sensc fiom
their questions that they were at least
as concerned about my political per-
spective as they were about my com-
petence to be a judge." Winner says
she would still like to be a judge
someday and is contemplating an-
other state house race in l9tt6.

One Charlotte lawyer says, "'l'here
are a lot of people, even who respect
hcr, who wonder if she can win [a
house seatl. . . . People are pissed
ofT." Robert Spearman, of Raleigh's
29-lawyer Sanford. Adams, McCul-
lough & Beard, who as fbrmcr chair
ol' the state elections board was a

Ginglcs defendant, says, "-lhere are
an awful krt of people in the legisla-
turc who are upset by the suit."

Regardless of its impact on her fu-
ture, Winner believcs Ginglcs has be-
gun to have the influence on the state
legislature that she hoped it would.
The number of blacks in the legisla-
ture has quadrupled sincc l9tl0. "H,v-
ery committee Iin the legislaturel has
at lcast one black member." she
says. "The complexion clf the place
has changed. Black citizens feel tieer
to come lobby. . . . [The legislature
haslstartcd hiring some black profes-
sional stafl'. . . . There are now black
people in the halls." Ll

Charlotte's ten-kilometer race
donned T-shirts that all posed the
same question: "What ls Leslie Win-
ner Running For'}" After the race,
she held a press conference to an-
nounce that she was entering the
[)emocr:rtic primary lirr a seat in the
slate hrluse of representatives.

Winner's house race was short-
lived. On January 27. l9tt4. the
judges announced their decision in
firvor of lhe Ginglc.r plaintifl\. Win-
ner says she knew right away that she
would have to drop out of the race in
order to help the court find a rcmedy.
Her candiducy also posed a possible
conflict. since the interests of her
mostly black clients might counter
her own electoral objectives as a
young, liberal candidate from a pre-
dominantly white, middle-class
neighborhood. Winner describes her
decisitln to withdraw as "emotionally
ve ry clitlicult. "

'Ihc district court cnjoined North
Carolina's upcoming primarics lor
the statc lcgislirture irnd gavc thc law-
makers yet another shot at drawing
district lines. Although Winncr con-
tested sever-irl tll' thc statc's newly
proposcd districts, thc ctlurt ulti-
mately irpprtlve d thc statc's sug-
gested renredics.

North Carolina's I)cmocrirtic irt-
t()rney gcncrirl, lie ttlcnirnt g()vcrn()r'.
irnd othe r nirnrcd dcl'endants irp-
pcalctl the (iirrglc.r tlccision directly
to the U.S. Suprenre Court. 'Ihcir
hriel' irrgLrecl lhu( thc dislrict court
girve totl much wcigh{ to the cvidence
thirt Winner uscrl to cstublish the ex-
istencc ol' racial discrinrinalion. anrl
Ioo littlc to thc rcsrrlls ol'thc l9tt2 lcg-
islativc elections. in which blacks
lirrcd bcttcr lhirn thcy hird in l9tt0. "l
lhink thc court wirs disturbcd by thc
lirct thrrt lhcrc wcrc some black cirn-
tlidatcs who didn't win." says statc's
counscl Mc(iLran. "Well. tough
noogics. "'fhc Reagirn administratitln's Jus-
licc l)cpirrtmcnl. dcspitc ils pre viorrs
clisapproval ol' nrany ol' thc state's
districting plans in l9ttl and 191t2.

.loined lirrces with thc state's l)emo-
cratic ollicials.'[-he adnrinistration's
brief ob.icctcd lo the cusier standard
lirr proving voting rights violutions
set by the l9tt2 amendmenl to the
Voting Rights Act and argucd thut
bluck clectoral succcss. even in onc
clection. is sulficient prool' that no
Voting Rights Act viol:rtion occurred.

Winner finds the Justice I)epart-
ment's position ironic. Under the
Voting Rights Act's old "intent"
standard, civil rights opponents ar-
gued that the def'eat of black candi-
dates tlidn't neccssarily prove an in-
tent to discriminate. Under the new
standard, thc Justicc Depurtment
and North Carolina argue that the
success of black candidates neces-
sarily proves a lack of discrimination.

Winncr's controversial role in
(iinglcs may prove detrimentul to her
own political aspirutitlns. "My . . .

politic:rl l'uturc probably woulcl have
heen better oll'in thc short run if we
had krst the case. maybe evcn in thc
krng run," she says.

Onc ol' the lirsl signs ol' trtlublc
came in lhe lirll ol'l9tt4 when Winncr
soughl irpptlintnrcnI irs a stirte trial
court.iudge. Winner wlrs intcrviewcd
in October by (ioverrttlr Hunt's judi-
cial ntlnrinating pancl. She says shc
was askcd about her nremhcrship itt
Ihc Sicrru Club ("Docs that ntctrn you
don't think pcople hrrvc thc right to

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done." Roach says, "She didn't edit:
she created."

F'or her next clinical quarter. Win-
ner needed a paying job to meet her
obligations to the school coopera-
tive. Roach had introduced her ttl Ju-
lius Chambers and his p:.rrtners in the
firm that was then known as Cham-
bers. Stein. Ferguson & Bccton.
Chambers. the first black to edit the
law review at The University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. had
established his law practice in Char-
lotte in 1964 after graduate studies at
Columbia Law School and an intern-
ship with the LDF. He built a reputa-
tion as one of the leading civil rights
lawyers in the country and tried the
celebrated case Su'rutrt v. Churlottc-
Me<'klcnburg Bourd o.l' Eclucutiott,
which led to the Supreme Court's ap-
proval of busing as a tool for public
school desegregation. With roughly
equal numbers of black and white
lawyers. Chambers's l2-lawyer Iirm
was itself a model of successful inte-
gration.

Winnerjoined Chambers, Stein for
the quarter. On a trip to court with
some of the firm's lawyers, Winner
met federal district judge James Mc-
Millan. whose order in the Su'rutn
case had paved the way fbr court-or-
dered busing throughout the nation.
By this time, Winner was certain that
she wanted to return to Charlotte af-
ter graduation. She was attracted to
the city's f ledgling group of public in-
terest lawyers and had chosen not to
stay in Boston where, she says,
"there were so many lawyers trying
to do good that they ended up fighting
each other to do it." She decided to
apply for a clerkship with Judge Mc-
Millan who-regardless of the con-
troversy generated by his Sx'arur de-
cision-was widely respected as one
of the best trial judges in the Fourth
Circuit.

Winner's determination was evi-
dent in the way she approached her
clerkship application. Betore return-
ing to school at the end of her intern-
ship with Chambers. she wrote to the
.iudge. The courtly and respectful
McMillirn wr()tc back exprcssing
coircern tlver Winner's "ungraded
education." but oflering to meet her
for lunch. Soon after her interview
with the judge, lctters and academic
evaluutions citing Winner as a superb
clerkship candidate started pouring
in to McMillan lrom lawyers in Char-
Iotte. Atlanta, and Boston. After
nearly two dozcn letters and evaltta-
tions, McMillan had reud enough. He
decided to ofl'er Winner the job.

McMillan declines comment on Win-
ner's clerkship in order to avoid any
possibility of influencing the Supreme
Court in its Gr)rgft'.r deliberations. But
Winner is unabashed in describing the
experience as "wondefi ul. "

After the clerkship, Winner wenl
to work tbr Legal Services in Char-
Iotte. There she developed a reputa-
tion as a skillf ul litigator. primarily in
tenants' rights cases. E. Osborne
Ayscue, Jr., lbrmer president of the
North Carolina Bar Association and
a partner at Charlottc's 32-lawyer
Helms, Mulliss & Johnston, saYS
Winner "came along in an era when
women lawyers and particularlY
women litigators sort of had the bur-
den of proving themselves." Winner
bore the burden well. he says, earn-
ing an "impeccable reputation both
fbr integrity and ability" within the
Iocal bar.

While at Legal Services, Winner
l'ed her political appetite by cam-
paigning for local. state, and national
candidates as a "good party Demo-
crat," she says. She also lobbied the
state on behalf of women's interests.
emphasizing the importance of ap-
pointing women judges.

ln lgttl Roach sent Winner to Ra-
leigh. the state capital. as an assistant
to Legal Services' chief lobbyist in
the state legislature. "She ended up
being the point person on Legal Ser-
vices issues," says Roach.

Winner says that her legislative ex-
perience made her "painfully aware"
of the exclusion of blacks from politi-
cal office in North Carolina. In l98l
only four of 170 state legislators were
black. "l had gone to committee after'
committee with no black on it," she
recalls. None of the bill-drafting or
research staff members were black.
"The only black people [on staffl in
the Icapitol] were the doormen and
the secretaries to the black represent-
atives," says Winner.

During the legislative session,
Winner considered a race fbr the
Charlotte city council. ln order to
run. she would have to leave Legal
Services, in accordance with prohibi-
tions on political activity by Legal
Services employees. She had been
contemplating a move anyway. hoP-
ing to broaden her practice and her
skills. After flirting with the idea of
opening her own office, she decided
instead to join Chambers, Stein. The
partners asked that she drop her
plans to run for city council. Winner
agreed, and in August l9tt I she
signed on as an associate.

GINGLES PERCOLATES
Even before she arrived at the firm.

the Ginglcs case was "percolating,"
Winner says. Chambers and other
North Carolina blacks had long con-
sidered a challenge to the legitimacy
of the state's electoral districts and
they believed that the redrawn l98l
districts made a good target. Winner
selected plaintiffs fbr the suit-in-
cluding Ralph Gingles. a black law-
yer from Gastonia, North Carolina-
from districts with a reputation for
serious voting rights violations.

Chambers contends that the legis-
lature. which redraws the state's dis-
tricts after each census, has repeat-
edly crafled districts that diluted
black voting strength. The legis'lature
allegedly achieved this through a
combination of two methods: divid-
ing concentrations of black voters
among several oddly shaped dis-
tricts, making districts with black
ma-iorities impossible; and using
large, so-called "multimember" dis-
tricts. in which candidates were
elected at-large. Multimember dis-
tricts inevitably had white mtrjorities.
and since North Carolina's white vot-
ers have seldom voted for black can-
didates in significant numbers, multi-
member districts generally delivered
an all-white winning slate. Of the 170
seats in the legislature in l9til, l4tt
represented multimember districts.
Despite a statewide black population
of22 percent, none ofthe state's elec-
toral districts had a black majority.

Winner spent her first month at the
firm drafting the Ginglcs complaint.
Chambers, who left his firm in July
1984 to become the LDF's full-time
director-counsel, says Winner's leg-
islative experience made her the right
person to handle the case, along with

C. Lani Guinier, an assistant counsel
and voting rights expert at the l-DF in
New York.

The complaint. which was liled in
September l9ttl. alleged that the leg-
islature had drawn districts that in-
hibited black electoral success. It
also questioned a state prohibition
against dividing any of North Caroli-
na's 100 counties in drawing district
lines and charged that North Cartl-
lina districts varied in population by
as much as 22 percent, a vitllation of
the U.S. Constitution's "one-person,
one-vote" mandate.

The impact of the suit was both im-
mediate and extensive. Governtlr
James Hunt. Jr., called the legisla-
ture into special session in October
lgttl to address the challenges made
in the complaint.

Meanwhilc. the U.S. Department
of Justice was also reviewing North
Carolina's electoral districts. Under
provisions of the Voting Rights Actof
1965. the state had to submit redis-
tricting plans aff-ecting 40 counties to
the Justice Department for preclear-
ance. The department objected to the
state's use of multimember districts,
to its prohibition against cutting
county lines to make districts, and to
the population differences.

During this flurry of activity in Ra-
leigh and Washington. Girlglc.s was
dormant. However, Winner,
Guinier, and their clients were busy
lobbying state legislators and Justice
Department officials to remake the
districts in a manner that would erad-
icate the alleged discrimination. The
co-counsel were also lobbying Con-
gress, where debate on the renewal of
the Voting Rights Act had heated up.
The congressional debate was crucial
to the Gingft'.s case because its out-
come would establish the legal stan-
dards by which voting rights abuses
could be proven.

In June l9tl2, Congress amended
the Voting Rights Act to eliminate a
judicially imposed standard requiring
plaintiffs to prove that a legislature
had drawn electoral districts with the
intantion to discriminate racially.
The amendment's new standard pro-
vides a lower hurdle: Plaintitls need
prove only that a legislature's elec-
tion plan rcsults in discrimination.

The Senate Judiciary Committee
prepared a report to guide the courts
in interpreting the new standard. The
report detailed several kinds of evi-
dence that would support claims of
an alleged voting rights violation, in-
cluding the existence of multimem-
ber districts. impediments to voter
registration and voting, racial dis-
crimination in nonelectoral areas.
and a minority group's record of elec-
torarl success. The committee di-
rected the courts to consider the "to-
tality of circumstances" in voting
rights cases in order to ascertain the
lingering eft'ects of historical racial
discrimination.

Two months before Congress
amended the Voting Rights Act. the
North Carolina legislature finally
adopted districts that satisfied the
Justice Department's objections.
Some of the new districts, especially
those which had been changed from
multimember to single-member dis-
tricts, were acceptable to Winner.
Others were not. Using Congress's
new Voting Rights Act standard as a
guide, Winner amended the Ginglcs
complaint to challenge seven of the
state's new districts. Then she

pushed ahead with discovery.
Chambers says Winner and

Guinier "gathered data that I didn't
know existed." including evidence of
discriminatory patterns in housing.
health, and employment that could
establish the lingering effects of dis-
crimination noted in the Judiciary
Committee's report.

To help her develop arguments lo
prove the historical basis of racial dis-
crimination in thc state. Winner
turned to Harry Watson, a fiiend fiom
Brown and f'ellow North Carolinian
who is a University of North Carolina
associate prof'essor of history.

The Ginglcs trial linally began on a
hot day in late July l9tt3 belbre a
three-judge panel in Raleigh. By all
accounts, Wi nner's petformance was
exemplary. ln the lbur days allottcd
fbr the plaintilTs' case, she and
Cuinier put on l3 witnesses and 90
exhibits. Historian Watson says Win-
ner "was . . . in complete command.
She led us through what needed to be
said in a very calm, low-key fashion.
but always in control. "

The day Winner's black witnesses
testified about their experiences with
election discrimination was "one of
the most powerful days I've ever had
in court," she says. Some of the day's
most dramatic testimony came fiom
G. K. Butterfield. Jr.. a prominenl
3tt-year-old black attorney from
Wilson, North Carolina's three-law-
yer Fitch &- Butterfield. He re-
counted his father's election in 1953
and again in 195-5 to the small city of
Wilson's board of aldermen from a
single-member, black-majority dis-
trict. In l9-57 the city changed to it
multimember district system. When
Butterfield's father ran again that
year, all the other candidates were
white. He came in last. Butterfield
testified that no other blacks were
elected to the board until 197-5.

Winner also led Butterfield
through a description of Wilson's
voting precincts. He testified that
crisscrossing the railroad tracks di-
viding the black and white communi-
ties were precincts two miles long but
barely two blocks wide-"two-mile
islands." Butterfield called them.
The polls in the elongated precincts
were generally placed in the farthest
reaches ol' the white side of the
t rac ks.

Winner's questioning of state wit-
nesses was oflen aggressive-and
clever. In cross-exumining a state of-
ficial who had testified that counties
were important governmental units
that should not be divided to create
black-majority districts. Winner led
him through a series of examples
showing how the state itself often ig-
nores county lines in providing es-
sential services.

Jerris Leonard. assistant attorney
general firr civil rights in the Nixon
Administration. and Kathleen
Heenan McGuan. of Washington,
D.C.'s five-lawyer Leonard &
McGuan, represented the state at
trial. McGuan. who drafled most of
the state's briefs tirr its appeal, says,
" Leslie Winner did a very line job. "

IN AND OUT
OF THE RUNNING

The Ciirrglt,.s trial lasted eight days.
While the court deliberated through
the fall of 1983. Winner turned her
attention to her own political career.
On the first Saturday in January
l9tt4. she and 14 other runners in

98 l#i'1,#,i,-l,l''AN 
.'AwY l:R



UP&GIIMIIIIG by Donald Baer

Southern Strategy
LeslieWinnerb

Armed with a 1982 amendment to the U.S.
Voting Rights Act, a 35-year-old Charlotte,

plaintiffs in the case, a challenge to
the North Carolina legislature's l98l
shaping of electoral districts. She
tried and won the case in district
court in Raleigh. Now her efforts will
culminate in the Supreme Court's
first interpretation of Congress's Vot-
ing Rights Act amendment.

Winner has turned oral argument

North Carolina, attorney has built a case
that may change the state's political map.

4ln December 4. U.S. Solicitor
I lGenerat Charles Fried and North
lUCarolina attorney general Lacy
Thornburg will square off against cel-
ebrated civil rights lawyer Julius
Chambers. the director-counsel of
the NAACP Legal Defense and Edu-
cation Fund, Inc. (LDF). The case
they will argue before the U.S. Su-
preme Court has provoked nation-
wide controversy, largely because
the Reagan administration is using
Thornburg, et ul. v . Gingles, et ul. in
an attempt to narrow the scope of the
1982 amendment to the Voting Rights
Act.

A 3-5-year-old Charlotte, North
Carolina, lawyer named Leslie Win-
ner will be standing in the wings that
day. The offstage role is unusual for
Winner, who has labored for more
than four years as counsel to the

over to Chambers, a founder of Char-
lotte's l2-lawyer civil rights firm,
Ferguson, Stein, Watt, Wallas &
Adkins (where she is a partner), be-
cause the opposition has called in its
big guns. But for those who know
about the tenacious, skillful way that
she organized and tried the case, or
about the 2,7fi) hours she devoted to

the trial. there is no doubt that
Gingles belongs to Leslie Winner.

The road to Winner's prominence
in one of the most significant civil
rights cases of the decade began with
her first law office job as the manager
(read: receptionist) of the Georgia of-
fice of the American Civil Liberties
Union. She took the job after gradu-
ating from Brown University in 1972
and organizing in Elmira. New York.
for George Mccovern's presidential
campaign that year. She says, "It
didn't take long for me to realize that
what the IACLUI lawyers were doing
was more interesting than what I was
doing." So Winner applied to law
schools.

She chose Boston's Northeastern
University School of Law because of
its clinical program, which requires
second- and third-year students to
work every other quarter. She was
also attracted to Northeastern be-
cause, as at Brown, grades are not
mandatory.

For her first clinical quarter, Win-
ner contacted Terence Roach. the ex-
ecutive director of Charlotte-based
Legal Services of Southern Pied-
mont, Inc., and a l3-year veteran of
legal services. Roach told Winner
that he would appreciate her help but
couldn't afford to pay her. She se-
cured funds for herself from the law
school's cooperative, through which
students with paying jobs share their
salaries with those who work for free.

During her internship at Legal Ser-
vices, Winner worked primarily on
housing issues. "She drafted inter-
rogatories better than I could have

PHoToGRAPH BY DUS'I-IN PECK THE AMERICAN LAWYER 07
DECEMBER l9u5 /, I