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March 25th 2005 • Printer version  2005 Frohnmayer Award goes to civil rights litigator Lare Aschenbrenner
Lare Aschenbrenner, J.D.
Lare AschenbrennerÃs zeal for justice has always placed him in the center of the
action.
In the course of a 45-year career, the 1957 University of Oregon law
school graduate traveled from Grants Pass to the Deep South and the far
North all in the pursuit of equal rights for all.
Although public service lawyers rarely get rich, they, I believe, more
frequently than lawyers generally, gain the satisfaction of having
genuinely furthered the cause of justice, Aschenbrenner said.
He was appointed OregonÃs first Public Defender during the early 1960s,
right after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down several landmark
decisions expanding the rights of accused criminals. He represented
black citizens of Mississippi during the late 1960s when the rage of
the old white power structure was at its peak.
Oregon was in the forefront of a number of civil rights and
environmental legal struggles in the 1970s, and so was Aschenbrenner,
who co-founded OregonÃs first public interest law firm.
In the 1990s, he led a successful fight for recognition of 226 Alaska
Native villages. Aschenbrenner said that, after being treated for decades as little
better than
ethnically based social clubs, these Alaskan villages won the same
status as Indian tribes in the lower 48.
Lawrence A. Aschenbrenner, 74, retired director of the Alaska office of the
Native American Rights Fund, will receive the
fourth Frohnmayer Award for Public Service at an April 15 banquet in
Portland. The annual event, sponsored by the law schoolÃs alumni
association, will begin at 6 p.m. at the Downtown Embassy Suites Hotel,
319 SW Pine St.
Aschenbrenner earned both his bachelorÃs degree and his law degree from
the UO. He was Jackson County district attorney and then Public
Defender for the State of Oregon during the early 1960s. He
served as chief counsel for the LawyerÃs Committee for Civil Rights
Under Law in Jackson, Mississippi during the late 1960s. He
became a partner in OregonÃs first public interest firm, Marmaduke,
Aschenbrenner, Merten & Saltveit in Portland in 1971.
Since 1976, he has
worked on behalf of Native Americans and served as director of the
Alaska office of the Native American Rights Fund in Anchorage from 1984
to 2002. He received a lifetime achievement award in 2002 from the
Alaska Civil Liberties Union.
Lare met his wife, Katy, a teacher, at the University of Oregon.
His children followed in their parentsà footsteps: John JD Ã92, Ted JD Ã83, and Connie are lawyers. Dan is a teacher.
The Frohnmayer Award for Public Service is given each year in Portland
by the UO School of Law Alumni Association. It recognizes a graduate,
faculty member or friend whose public service brings honor to the
school. Tickets for the 2005 banquet can be ordered through the law
alumni events hotline: (541) 346-3970 or email alumni@law.uoregon.edu.
Cost is $75.00 per person, or $40.00 for attorneys and employees of
public service/public interest organizations.
A longer story about Lare AschenbrennerÃs key cases as OregonÃs public
defender, in Mississippi and in Alaska will appear in the Fall 2005
Oregon Lawyer. Reserve a copy
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