Citizens United & First Amendment April 23, 2015

William B. Turner

Citizens United and the First Amendment
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Speaker: William B. Turner
UC Berkeley & U. of San Francisco
6:15 Networking
6:45 Dinner
7:15 Program
Crow Canyon Country Club
711 Silver Lake Drive, Danville, CA
Dinner is $26
Please RSVP btilford@pacbell.net


San Ramon Valley Democratic Club is pleased to welcome William B. Turner, speaking on Citizens United and the First Amendment. For the past 29 years, William Bennett Turner has taught courses on freedom of speech and the press at the University of California at Berkeley. He also teaches First Amendment courses at OLLI@Berkeley and at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco.

Mr. Turner practiced law for 45 years. As a San Francisco lawyer, he specialized in unusual litigation, including constitutional law. He argued three cases before the United States Supreme Court (including two First Amendment cases) and more than 40 cases in lower appellate courts, and he served as lead counsel in many notable state and federal trials.

He graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1963 and, after a Fulbright fellowship in comparative law, he spent three years with a New York law firm. This was followed by nearly ten years with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund doing civil rights law. He returned to teach at Harvard in 1977. He founded his own law firm in San Francisco in 1978 and served as its senior partner until 1992. He was of counsel to the firm of Rogers Joseph O’Donnell from 1992 to 2008.

Mr. Turner has published dozens of articles in various magazines, newspapers and law reviews. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Politico, Wired, the San Francisco Chronicle, Harvard Magazine, The Threepenny Review, and many others. He also served as Legal Affairs Correspondent for KQED television, winning numerous awards for news and documentaries on legal subjects. He was Legal Consultant to the PBS “We The People” series on the Bicentennial of the Constitution. He is the author of Figures of Speech: First Amendment Heroes and Villains (2011).

Please join us at 6:15 pm to talk about the latest political news or to just socialize and have fun.

Members & Invited Guests: $26
Non-members: $30 ($26 for dinner and $4 requested donation to help offset program costs)
‘Presentation only” is available if we meet our required 25 person minimum: Free ($5 requested donation) There are 4 spaces for “Presentation only.”

Please email Brodie Hilp that you are coming by Monday, April 20 (we need a ‘head count’ for the dinner). Thank you for your help.

RSVP: To make certain you have a dinner, please RSVP.
Please make checks payable to Brodie Hilp, to 130 Bridgeside Circle, Danville, CA 94506