In honor of African American History Month, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana presents a virtual tour and engagement with the exhibit “Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration,” now on view at the Historic New Orleans Collection. Wednesday, February 12 from noon-1 pm, in Courtroom 501 and by Zoom. There is no charge for this 1-hour CLE with lunch provided to in-person attendees, but advance registration is required at https://forms.office.com/g/y28G0Exum2. Please see the Eastern District of Louisiana website, www.laed.uscourts.gov, for additional information and for updates. Special thanks to the Historic New Orleans Collection and to our co-sponsors: the New Orleans Bar Association, the New Orleans Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, the Greater New Orleans Louis A. Martinet Legal Society, and the New Orleans Chapter of the Association for Women Attorneys.
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News & Announcements: 2025-01
Check this page, or the News and Announcements box on the homepage, for the latest official news and announcements released by the court. You can also access archived news and announcements from this page.
January 24, 2025
On November 20, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and New Orleans Chapter of the Federal Bar Association presented the 33rd Annual Judge Alvin B. Rubin Symposium to a packed en banc courtroom, with many more joining via Zoom. As with the James Meredith case reenacted last year, the historic courtroom reenactment selected for this year’s Rubin Symposium—Vietnamese Fishermen vs. The Ku Klux Klan—also had strong ties to the geographic footprint of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Judge Rubin served with distinction for over a decade. The all-star cast featured Judge Darrel J. Papillion as plaintiffs’ attorney Morris Dees and Federal Public Defender Claude Kelly as antagonist Louis Beam, the college-educated Grand Dragon of the Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Chief Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown read from the Southern District of Texas’s early-1980s opinions enjoining the Klan’s unlawful threats and intimidation tactics against the Vietnamese fishermen around Galveston and closing Beam’s private paramilitary training programs in Texas.
The Symposium continued with a panel discussion led by U.S. Magistrate Judge Eva Dossier on the elusive concept of the rule of law – what it is, what it means for practitioners, and how it’s been historically challenged. The Rubin Symposium concluded with a reception in the lobby of the courthouse featuring a variety of delicious Vietnamese foods catered by Thanh Thanh Restaurant of Gretna.
Additional Photographs of the play can be seen here.
January 10, 2025
The New Orleans Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, along with the Family and Friends of the Honorable Helen “Ginger” Berrigan, will celebrate her life and legacy on Thursday, January 16, 2025, at 4:00 p.m., in the United States District Courthouse, 500 Poydras Street, Courtroom C-501, New Orleans, Louisiana. The public is invited to attend.
January 2, 2025
The court will be closed Thursday, January 9, 2025, in observance of the National Day of Mourning in memory of former President Carter.