Arlin & Neysa Adams Lectureship

The Arlin and Neysa Adams Lectureship was established in 2005 through the generosity of the Honorable Arlin Adams SBM ‘41 CLA ‘51 HON ‘65 and his wife, Neysa Adams, to provide for lectures in constitutional law.

Judge Arlin M. Adams served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1969 to 1987. Until January 2012, he was of counsel to Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis, where he was senior partner from 1947 to 1969. Judge Adams also served as Secretary of Public Welfare for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1966. He is a past Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, former president of the American Judicature Society, former member of the Board of the Federal Judicial Center, and former Chairman of the Commission for Supreme Court Fellows. He also served from 1990 to 1995 as Independent Counsel appointed by a special U.S. court to investigate alleged corruption in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In 1993, Judge Adams was elected President of the American Philosophical Society. Judge Adams received the 1997 Philadelphia Award, presented annually to a Philadelphian in recognition of outstanding service to the community. In 1999, he received the Gold Medal of the Philadelphia Bar Association, the association’s highest honor, and in 2005, the President’s Medal of the Pennsylvania Bar Association.

Judge Adams, who holds a B.A. from Temple University and a J.D. from University of Pennsylvania, serves on Temple University’s President’s Advisory Council. In 1981, he and Mrs. Adams established the Arlin and Neysa Adams Prize Fund for Excellence in Pre-Law Studies, and in 2004 they established a scholarship in the name of their daughter, Jane Adams, for a student at Temple’s School of Education.

Past Adams Lectures

Year	Lecturer
2022	Erwin Chemerinsky and Laura Little Moderated by JoAnne A. Epps
Fall 2018	Hon. Jose L. Linares (LAW ’78)
2015	Floyd Abrams
2014	Stephen Carter
2012	Kathleen Sullivan
2011	Owen Fiss
2009	Diane Wood