Jerry Hartman, President

After the death from brain cancer of his late wife, Barbara McDowell, in 2009, Jerry Hartman established the Barbara McDowell Foundation to commemorate her life and passion for social justice. Since then, he has served as the Foundation’s President and Board Chair, guiding it to a nationally recognized charitable institution.

Jerry has had a long career as a litigator, including four years in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division during the Carter Administration, where he litigated pattern and practice employment discrimination cases, principally in Mississippi and Alabama, and represented the United States in over 20 suits defending the government’s minority set-aside affirmative action program culminating in the Supreme Court’s decision upholding its constitutionality. He received the Department’s prestigious Special Commendation Award from the Attorney General of the United States.

Jerry was a tenured law professor at Wake Forest Law School and has been a partner in several national law firms representing major American corporations in class action employment discrimination cases. While at his last law firm, Drinker Biddle, from which he retired in 2017, Jerry participated with the firm’s attorneys in numerous pro bono high impact social justice cases under the auspices of the Foundation. Those cases are collected here.

Jerry now manages his own law firm where he represents plaintiffs in class action social justice cases. After graduating from George Washington Law School, he clerked for the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Jerry graduated from Columbia University and Columbia University Business School.