WHO: Hauwa Ibrahim, international human rights attorney and visiting professor at St. Louis University School of Law

Regina Austin, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania

WHAT: A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. Memorial Lecture, "Social Justice, Human Rights and Sharia Law, a Conversation with Hauwa Ibrahim," sponsored by the Center for Africana Studies at Penn

WHERE: Gittis Hall Room 1, Penn Law School, 3400 Chestnut St.

WHEN: Thursday, Nov. 9, 5:30 p.m.

Hauwa Ibrahim, one of the few women lawyers practicing in northern Nigeria, won international acclaim for her successful defense of a woman who was on trial for having a child out of wedlock and who had been sentenced to death.  Since 1999, when many states in Nigeria adopted Islamic Sharia in criminal proceedings, Ibrahim has served as defense counsel in more than 90 pro bono Sharia-related cases.

Regina Austin, professor of law at Penn and a leading authority on economic discrimination and minority legal feminism, will engage Ibrahim in a conversation on Ibrahims' fight for social justice and human rights for the poor and other disenfranchised groups in Nigeria.

The annual lecture named in honor of the late chief justice of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.