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Professor Larry S. Gibson and Professor Michael Millemann, both University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law faculty members since the early 1970s, retired in July.
Each professor’s impact on Maryland Carey Law, the city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland, and well beyond is immeasurable. It is not hyperbole to say that their work touches millions of lives. In overlapping and diverging spheres, both have built communities of people carrying that work forward and catalyzed the improvement of conditions for countless individuals. Their offices in the law school may be (mostly!) empty now, but the transformative ripple effect of their influence is ever-expanding, driving and inspiring generations of successive leaders and populations benefiting from systemic reforms and other positive outcomes of their indefatigable efforts.
Foundational Figures
Two of the longest serving professors in the history of the law school, Gibson and Millemann have been instrumental in building Maryland Carey Law’s distinctive character and modern purpose.
“These legal giants are foundational figures in the identity of our law school, indelibly woven into the story of who we are and what we stand for as an institution,” says Maryland Carey Law Dean Renée Hutchins Laurent. “Their legacies will continue to inspire us as we boldly lead into the future.”
Central to that story is the Clinical Law Program, which provides tens of thousands of hours of free legal services annually to underrepresented people in Maryland and exemplifies the law school’s commitment to the principle that everyone deserves access to justice.
It is no coincidence that the program launched around the same time that Millemann joined the faculty. He led the program’s development, created many new clinics, and served as one of its directors. At the same time, he led the creation of the school’s internationally respected Environmental Law Program, which features a vibrant, high-demand clinic.
Millemann is credited by many as being the force that, through energy and collaboration, catapulted the Clinical Law Program to national renown. Millemann created and/or taught more than 25 clinics and legal theory and practice courses, deploying waves of students to seek justice for disenfranchised people as part of their legal training.
He also was instrumental in developing and building capacity for the law school’s hallmark “Cardin Requirement,” through which clinic participation is a graduation requirement for most students. The law school was the first in the country to require students to take a clinical course as a condition of graduation.
More recently, Millemann joined with the Office of the Public Defender in organizing a coalition of lawyers, social workers, and law and social work students to represent and help reintegrate incarcerated individuals in Maryland who became eligible for new hearings following the 2012 Unger v. State decision. He also co-created and co-taught clinics that have helped to implement the Juvenile Resto-ration Act (JRA) in 2022. Through these projects, Millemann and his teams of students secured the release of dozens of incarcerated clients, many of whom have gone on to become community leaders.
“Mike has literally saved our lives,” says Stanley Mitchell, an Unger client, “and every day we try to honor him with our commitment to making our community safe.”
Millemann’s innovative modeling is palpable in today’s agile Clinical Law Program, which consistently rises to meet emerging needs. Recently established clinics work in areas including eviction prevention, appellate immigration, LQBTQI+ equality, and decarceration.
Sharon Krevor-Weisbaum ’87 remembers tackling Baltimore City’s dysfunctional foster care program, fighting for individuals languishing in state psychiatric hospitals, and representing women who fought back against their abusers under Millemann’s tutelage in the late ’80s. She says he became her “North Star” as an attorney.
“Mike taught us what our obligation as future attorneys should be and how we could never lose sight of this critical obligation as we all moved forward in our careers,” says Krevor-Weisbaum, the initial executive director of the Public Justice Center, of which Millemann and Nevett Steele, Jr. ’67 were among the founders. “I always saw myself as part attorney and part social worker, and I knew that this came from my days with Michael. So many decades of lawyers in Maryland followed Michael’s guidance and became, because of him, the people that they were.”
Krevor-Weisbaum went on to become the longtime managing partner at Baltimore’s homegrown law firm Brown, Goldstein & Levy, which has always focused on community and social responsibility.
Also at Maryland Carey Law’s core, alongside its commitment to public service, is a culture of welcoming inclusion that is integral to the law school’s forward-reaching strategy to prepare lawyers and leaders who possess a diversity of thought and hail from a variety of backgrounds. A deeply held, ongoing goal is to eliminate unnecessary barriers to the legal profession that serve neither clients nor the public.
Gibson, the law school’s first Black tenured full professor, is unrivaled in propelling progress toward this ideal. For half a century, Gibson advised the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and since 2003 organized the Black Law Alumni Reunion (hosted every five years). These activities represent just the tip of the iceberg that is the community he nurtured and connected. Gibson’s magic for mentoring is evident in endless tales of his central position in rocketing generations of students to distinguished careers by opening doors of opportunity and bringing together people highly motivated to lift each other up.
Former Baltimore city solicitor and 4th Circuit judge, Andre Davis ’78, served as president of BLSA when he was in law school and remembers how Gibson not only “made Civil Procedure fun,” but also supported him throughout his career. Judge Davis credits Gibson with helping him land both of his federal clerkships and make the crucial decision to pursue a judgeship.
“Without Larry’s mentoring, tutorship, and guidance,” he says, “there’s no Judge Andre Davis, both metaphorically and literally.”
Maryland Carey Law Black alumni are a who’s who of regional and national influence. Most call Gibson a mentor and/or friend, illustrating the flood of support he has provided emerging leaders through the years. As well as Judge Davis, graduates include the Hon. William H. “Billy” Murphy ’69, founder of Murphy, Falcon & Murphy; the late Congressman Elijah Cummings ’76; Venable partner Kenneth Thompson ’76; Ava Lias-Booker ’86, partner and head of litigation at McGuireWoods; the Hon. George Levi Russell III ’91, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland; former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake ’95; and U.S. Senator Angela Alsobrooks ’96, just to name a few.
Many of those distinguished alumni attended the 2023 Black Law Alumni Reunion, which was Gibson’s final one as the event’s planner. That weekend, in Westminster Hall, Maryland Carey Law announced the creation of yet another building block in the school’s forward trajectory, the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law. Named in honor of Gibson and Professor Emeritus Taunya Banks, the center’s mission is to re-imagine and transform institutions and systems of racial and intersectional inequality, marginalization, and oppression. The naming is a powerful reference to the inspiration Gibson and Banks provide as Maryland Carey Law forges new channels toward racial justice.
Statesmen
While the careers of Gibson and Millemann had differing emphases, both professors came up during the civil rights movement and were fueled by its values.
During his 1L summer, Millemann interned with a civil right organization in Louisiana. That work cemented his dedication to providing access to justice for marginalized people. Known for his vigor and fearlessness, Millemann affected remarkable reforms in Maryland starting the moment he had his JD in hand.
Graduating in 1969 from Georgetown Law, he was co-counsel at the Legal Aid Bureau in a case challenging the requirement that 16- and 17-year-olds arrested in Baltimore be tried as adults. The plaintiffs prevailed, and the age increased to 18, as it already was in the rest of the state. Soon after, he was lead counsel in several civil rights cases with the bureau, including Anderson v. Solomon, in which a federal court held that allowing Maryland residents to be committed to psychiatric institutions indefinitely without a hearing was unconstitutional. The court ordered that all involuntarily committed persons have a hearing before an administrative law judge within 72 hours of commitment so that a neutral party can assess objectively if the person should be hospitalized.
“This was a tremendous reform in Maryland laws,” says retired Howard County, Maryland, circuit court judge, Dennis Sweeney, who worked with Millemann in the ’70s and ’80s. “He was a force of nature.”
In 1974, Millemann joined the faculty full-time. As he set about building the Clinical Law Program, he also was a leader in developing other legal services programs and non-profits, resulting in a network of legal services organizations in Maryland. They include the Maryland Legal Services Corporation; the Public Justice Center; the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service; the Prisoner Assistance Project (now operating as the Prisoner Rights Information System of Maryland); Community Law in Action, a youth advocacy and development program; Civil Justice; and the St. Ambrose Legal Services Program; among others.
In a move to enforce a Supreme Court decision requiring appointment of counsel for indigent defendants at preliminary hearings, “Mike sued every lower trial court judge in Baltimore City to get them to comply and led the opening of the first public defender program in Maryland,” remembers Judge Sweeney. That office evolved into today’s Office of the Public Defender, which now represents clients in Baltimore City and in every county in Maryland.
While on a leave of absence at the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, where he was chief general counsel and chief of the civil division, Millemann was counsel in a case in the national spotlight: a lawsuit to obtain for the state the bribes that disgraced Vice President Spiro Agnew took while governor of Maryland. The suit recovered more than $250,000.
Millemann’s advancements in consumer protection live on in a recently endowed professorship at Maryland Carey Law. Professor Jeff Sovern, a national leader in the field whose recent work explores ways to strengthen the power of federal regulatory agencies to act against companies that engage in discrimination, is the first Michael Millemann Professor of Consumer Law.
“Maryland’s consumers, lawyers, students, and institutions, including the law school, are far better for Professor Millemann’s service,” says Sovern. “We are lucky to have had him.”
Just as the law school was Millemann’s home base for work affecting people well beyond the school’s classrooms, so too was it for Gibson, whose watermark is visible across the globe.
Fresh out of Columbia Law in 1967, Gibson began his career representing civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Black Panther Party. He also served on the Baltimore City School Board from 1969 to 1975. In 1972, he became the first Black law professor at the University of Virginia before joining the Maryland Carey Law faculty in 1974.
In those early days, Gibson proclaimed that his personal mission was to “be a just and learned man.” Ron Shapiro, the prominent attorney Gibson has called his best friend for 50 years, notes that as time went on, Gibson added “and to help other just and learned persons succeed” to his mantra.
In that aspiration, Gibson was remarkably successful. For decades, he has been the strategist behind the political campaigns of a surge of elected officials, including mayors, congressmen, governors, and presidents. Appearing at a recent event in honor of Gibson and Millemann, Maryland Governor Wes Moore told the story of seeking Gibson’s advice before announcing his gubernatorial run and relying on the professor as a top advisor during his campaign Echoing a common sentiment, Moore said, “Despite being one of the busiest people I know, ... he put everything off to the side and made sure that I could be now standing in front of you here as the 63rd governor of the state of Maryland. Because the truth is, without Larry Gibson, there is no Governor Wes Moore.”
Folksy photographs of Gibson show him posting campaign lawn signs, but the real work was done behind the scenes where he devised campaign strategies, organized allies, and multiplied his influence through relationship building and authenticity.
Gibson formed valuable connections serving in the U.S. Department of Justice as associate deputy attorney general and director of the National Economic Crimes Project during the Carter administration. After returning to Maryland Carey Law, he was campaign manager for Baltimore’s first Black mayor, Kurt Schmoke, in 1987, with successful reelection campaigns in 1991 and 1995. Meanwhile, he served as Maryland state chairman of the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign in1992 and senior advisor to former Congressman Elijah Cummings from 1996 through 2019. After Cummings’ death while in office in 2019, Gibson was senior advisor to Congressman Kweisi Mfume during his successful run to fill Cummings’ vacant seat. In 2024, he supported the campaign of U.S. Senator Angela Alsobrooks ’96.
Going global in 2001, Gibson was principal campaign consultant for Madagascar’s president Marc Ravalo-manana and for Liberia’s first female president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in 2005. He was also an advisor to Nana Akufo-Addo for president of Ghana in 2008.
“Professor Gibson has always had a desire to build an ecosystem where justice could prevail. He taught generations around the world how to pursue justice,” says Alsobrooks. “His wisdom has formed a mayor, county executives, a governor, a senator, and presidents. And it endures as leaders across the state, country, and world continue his legacy.”
A prolific Thurgood Marshall historian, Gibson is the author of Young Thurgood: The Making of a Supreme Court Justice. This year, he is set to publish another major book titled Thurgood Marshall’s Orchestra: Mobilizing Civil Rights Activists in the South, 1935-1955. In 2005, Gibson used his enormous pull to push through the Maryland General Assembly the renaming of BWI to the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
Legends
The work of professors Larry Gibson and Michael Millemann throughout their remarkable careers has generated tidal waves of positive impact from the Inner Harbor to the Indian Ocean, the ripples of which will buoy communities innovating progress for years to come.
The secret to their profound influence?
According to Maryland Carey Law alum and professor emeritus, Susan Leviton ’72, both possess special qualities that enable them to bring together teams that get things done.
“Mike and Larry are some of the few people who have the remarkable ability to implement change through brilliant ideas, tough work, boundless energy and friendly persuasion,” says Leviton. “They can vehemently disagree with you and convince you that everything you ever said was totally wrong and then with a smile on their face and putting their arm around your shoulder, get exactly what they want. And that is why they can reform institutions, governments, and the lives of so many disenfranchised folks.”