Fellowship To Promote Importance of Preserving Access To The Courts


5/9/06

The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (“DMI”) is proud to announce the selection of Cyrus Dugger as the first Milberg Weiss Legal Fellow at DMI.  The newly created Milberg Weiss Legal Fellowship will focus on developing a new generation of lawyers who are committed to working in a legal and public policy capacity to preserve access to the courts and our civil justice system. 

Mr. Dugger, who will graduate from the New York University School of Law (“NYU Law”) in May, will be continuing a lifelong dedication to the public interest as the first Milberg Weiss Senior Fellow at DMI.  Currently, Mr. Dugger is the Arthur Garfield Hays Roger Baldwin Civil Rights and Human Rights Fellow at NYU Law.  Mr. Dugger has also worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Make the Road by Walking in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and on community development issues in numerous countries around the world.  As a Milberg Weiss Senior Fellow, Mr. Dugger will focus his efforts on preserving access to the courts at a time in which persons with limited financial means are finding it difficult to pursue remedy through the legal system. 

“The Drum Major Institute is one of the most thoughtful think tanks for America.  Combining its talent together with our law firm, through the joint use of a fellowship appointment, will contribute greatly to the future of our citizens having access to the courts.  Cyrus Dugger exemplifies the type of background, education and inner beliefs that will most benefit from this mutual relationship between Drum Major and Milberg Weiss. We are confident the program will play a leading role in the future betterment of our society,” said Melvyn Weiss, Senior and Founding Partner of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP.

Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP was founded in 1965.  The firm has more than 110 lawyers, with principal offices in New York City and additional offices in Boca Raton, Florida; Wilmington, Delaware; Washington , D.C.; and Los Angeles, California.  The firm’s practice focuses on prosecution of class and complex actions in many fields of commercial litigation, emphasizing securities, corporate fiduciary, consumer, insurance, healthcare, antitrust, mass tort, human rights, and related areas of litigation principally through the use of class actions.

The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy is a non-partisan, non-profit think tank generating the ideas that fuel the progressive movement.  From releasing nationally recognized studies of our increasingly fragile middle class to writing landmark analysis showing that a progressive immigration policy is in the best interest of America’s current and aspiring middle class, DMI has been on the leading edge of the public policy debate. DMI is also noted for developing new and creative ways to bring its work to the advocates and opinion leaders that need it, from starting one of the first public policy weblogs to pioneering the use of Google Adwords to hold elected officials accountable for their votes on issues of importance to their constituents.