2026 George Boyer Vashon Lecture Navigating Our Way – Benefiting the Whole

April 10, 2026 | Lecture | The Westin Philadelphia Georgian Room

Please join us for the 2026 George Boyer Vashon Lecture Navigating Our Way – Benefiting the Whole, which will be held on Friday, April 10 at 3:30 p.m. Eastern at The Westin Philadelphia, Georgian Room.

Registration: 3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Program: 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Networking Reception: 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

REGISTER

1.5 hours of CLE credit pending.

About the 2026 George Boyer Vashon Lecture

Robert Grey, president of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity and former president of the American Bar Association, will deliver the keynote address. Mr. Grey will examine the current state of law firm diversity and inclusion efforts, discuss the evolving legal landscape and explore expectations and solutions moving forward. A fireside chat with Mr. Grey and Duane Morris’ Vice Chairman Tom Servodidio, will follow the address. They will cover a wide range of issues that impact the diversity ecosystem, with an exploration of issues impacting law firm life in these challenging times.

About the George Boyer Vashon Lecture

The George Boyer Vashon Lecture honors the life of George B. Vashon (b. 1824) by exploring issues of justice and fairness. In 2010, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court addressed the wrongness of discrimination against Mr. Vashon based upon race. In that same year, the Vashon Lecture was launched. The George Boyer Vashon Lecture is an opportunity for all of us to look to the future while we examine and learn from the past.

Mr. Vashon was a noted African American legal scholar and abolitionist. He twice sought admission to practice law in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, but was rejected in both cases because of his race. In October 2010, after Mr. Vashon’s great-grandson, Duane Morris’ former Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Nolan N. Atkinson Jr., and others petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Mr. Vashon was officially admitted posthumously to the bar of the courts of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

As a teenager, alongside his father who was an abolitionist and well-respected leader in the Black community, Mr. Vashon co-founded the Pittsburgh Anti-Slavery Society in 1838. He attended Oberlin College, where he was the first African American to receive a bachelor’s degree. After he was denied the right to practice law in Pennsylvania, one week later ‒ using the same credentials ‒ he was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court. He moved to New York and became the first licensed African American attorney in that state. Later returning to Pittsburgh, Mr. Vashon became a principal at an African American public school and served as president of Avery College. He moved to Washington, D.C., where he became one of the first Black professors at Howard University.