Episodes
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Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard was the most important decision on affirmative action in generations, banning preferential treatment based on race in higher education admissions. How are colleges and universities complying with SFFA? What else will be necessary in order to ensure compliance? What does the next generation of cases look like? Outside of higher education, what will be the effect of SFFA? Does it apply to employment and contracting? Does it apply to gender as well as race? What does it say about disparate impact?
Featuring:
Prof. Peter Arcidiacono, William Henry Glasson Professor of Economics, Duke University
Prof. David Bernstein, University Professor of Law; Executive Director, Liberty & Law Center, George Mason University
Prof. Kyle Rozema, Professor of Law, Co-Director of the JD/PhD Program and Academic Placement, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Prof. Sonja Starr, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology, University of Chicago Law School
Moderator: Hon. Lisa Branch, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit -
The 2024 National Lawyers Convention will take place November 14-16, 2024 at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC. The topic of the conference is "Group Identity and the Law." The conference will conclude with the annual Hon. Robert H. Bork Memorial Lecture, featuring remarks by Prof. Stephen Sachs.
Featuring:
Prof. Stephen Sachs, Antonin Scalia Professor of Law, Harvard Law School -
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RESOLVED: That Congress Can Ban TikTok
Featuring:
Mr. Miguel Estrada, Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Mr. Patrick Philbin, Partner, Torridon Law PLLC
Moderator: Prof. Eugene Volokh, Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor, UCLA School of Law -
Artificial Intelligence is now part of daily life. AI has improved efficiency, predicted outcomes with accuracy, and even created innovations. At the same time, however, AI and its capabilities are evolving faster than the laws and regulations governing its use. AI presents new challenges to intellectual property—from inventorship and authorship issues to liability. This panel will explore the intersection of AI and Intellectual Property rights. In the copyright context, it must be determined who is the owner of AI-generated works to whether it is fair use to train AI models using copyrighted works. In the patent context, it must be determined whether AI can be an inventor and whether AI can or should be used to assist in the drafting of patents. It is also not settled who has the power to regulate AI—the USPTO and other federal agencies, or only Congress? These are all questions that will eventually be answered by the courts or legislation. This panel will explore these questions and more as it looks to try and answer how we can move forward in a world filled with AI while ensuring the protection of intellectual property rights.
Featuring:
Mr. Jordan Gimbel, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft
Hon. Melissa Holyoak, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Hon. Darrell Issa, United States Representative (CA 48th District)
Hon. Paul Redmond Michel, Former Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Moderator: Hon. Ryan T. Holte, United States Court of Federal Claims & Jurist-In-Residence Professor of Law, The University of Akron School of Law -
In the twentieth century, state supreme courts and legislatures limited the practice of law to licensed law school graduates and prevented nonlawyers from investing in law firms. This regulatory structure has not yielded a sufficient supply of affordable legal services to keep pace with demand: despite government and charitable funding and pro bono work, over 90% of the basic civil legal needs of low-income Americans now go unmet.
As lawyers have taken an interest in regulatory reform in this century, some have begun to scrutinize our own profession and explore whether innovative structural changes can help close this justice gap. The experts on this panel will equip attendees to consider reform in their states by examining the pros and cons of three such changes: (1) licensing legal paraprofessionals to perform limited legal services; (2) allowing nonlawyers to invest in legal service providers; and (3) reforming legal education and licensure to increase the supply of lawyers, especially in underserved geographic and practice areas.
Featuring:
Hon. Clint Bolick, Justice, Supreme Court of Arizona
Hon. Charles Canady, Chief Justice, Florida Supreme Court
Ms. Danielle Hirsch, Managing Director, Court Consulting Division, National Center for State Courts
Ms. Lucy Ricca, Executive Director, Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession, Stanford Law School
Moderator: Hon. J. Brett Busby, Justice, Texas Supreme Court -
Last term, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Rahimi, which built upon the text-first, history-second methodology articulated by the Supreme Court in Heller and reaffirmed in Bruen. Many hot button Second Amendment issues are percolating through the lower courts and are likely to reach this Supreme Court in the coming terms. This panel will discuss Rahimi's impact on the text and history methodology as applied to legal challenges to "gun free zones", bans on semi-automatic rifles and "high capacity" magazines, age restrictions, and restrictions on misdemeanants. The panel will also discuss several important methodological issues that are common to many Second Amendment litigations, including the debate whether 1791 or 1868 is the correct time to determine the meaning of the Second Amendment.
Featuring:
Prof. William Merkel, Associate Professor, Charleston School of Law
Mr. Mark W. Smith, Senior Fellow, Ave Maria School of Law and Host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment Channel
Mr. David Thompson, Partner, Cooper & Kirk
Moderator: Hon. Amul Thapar, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit -
The 1964 Civil Rights Act outlaws discrimination on the basis of sex in employment. In addition, in 1972, The Higher Education Act was amended to prohibit the exclusion of any person from any federally funded educational program or activity on the basis of sex. These seemingly simple prohibitions have recently been the focus of considerable attention. How, for example, do they apply to individuals whose gender identity is seemingly at odds with their biological sex? What does the Bostock decision say about their situation? Is a federally funded school required to assign bathrooms, showers, changing rooms, and sleeping quarters based on gender identity? Is an employer required to do so? If not required, is it permissible for these entities to do so under the law? What about athletics? What about prisons? And quite apart from what the law is now, what should it be? What about what is often called “gender affirming” treatment? Should a parent be able to obtain such treatment for a child? Should a parent be able to refuse it? What is the role of schools? Should the government be obligated to fund “gender affirming” care for prisoners or individuals on relief? Finally, does or should the law require others to accept a person’s preferred gender identity—at work, at school, elsewhere—and/or adjust their speech to reflect that identity?
Featuring:
Prof. Doriane Coleman, Thomas L. Perkins Distinguished Professor of Law, Duke Law School
Ms. Erin Hawley, Senior Counsel, Vice President of Center for Life & Regulatory Practice, Alliance Defending Freedom
Hon. Andrea Lucas, Commissioner, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Prof. Sarath Sanga, Professor of Law & Co-Director, Center for the Study of Corporate Law, Yale Law School
Mr. D. John Sauer, Principle, James Otis Law Group LLC; Former Solicitor General, Missouri
Moderator: Ms. Jennifer Braceras, Founder, Independent Women’s Law Center; Former Commissioner, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights -
(Ticketed event)
On September 11, 2001, at the age of 45 and at the height of her professional and personal life, Barbara K. Olson was murdered in the terrorist attacks against the United States as a passenger on the hijacked American Airlines flight that was flown into the Pentagon. The Federalist Society believes that it is most fitting to dedicate an annual lecture on limited government and the spirit of freedom to the memory of Barbara Olson. She had a deep commitment to the rule of law and understood well the relationship between respecting limits on government power and the preservation of freedom. And, significantly, Barbara Olson was an individual who never took freedom for granted in her own life, even in her final terrifying moments-her inspiring and energetic human spirit is a testament to what one can achieve in a world that places a premium on human freedom. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson delivered the first lecture in November 2001. The lecture series continued in following years with other notable individuals.
Featuring:
Prof. Jonathan R. Turley, J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law; Director of the Environmental Law Advocacy Center; Executive Director, Project for Older Prisoners, The George Washington University Law School -
Theories of nuisance, market-share, and consumer protection liability have become increasingly popular among plaintiffs who cannot trace an alleged harm to any specific defendant. Recently, states and local governments have sought to impose market-share liability on companies based on allegedly misleading statements (or silence) about the potential effects of their products. These cases raise difficult legal issues that remain underdeveloped because the risk of a crippling damages award often pressures companies to settle claims early in litigation.
Featuring:
Mr. Theodore J. Boutrous, Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Mr. Elbert Lin, Chair, Issues & Appeals, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
Mr. Oramel H. Skinner, III, Executive Director, Alliance For Consumers
Moderator: Hon. William H. Pryor, Jr., Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit -
Much has been made of the promise and concerns around AI technical advances, and guardrails that might be considered to reduce the downside of opaque quasi-algorithmic outcomes associated with current large language model approaches. This panel will examine the current AI regulatory debate and explore how current and proposed corporate and governmental AI is being shaped and normed to provide outputs that reinforce “mainstream” economic, ideological and operational norms, with the risk of vested interests defining such norms. From national security applications, autonomous vehicle safety decisions, economic predictions, pareto-optimal and social benefit determinations, and health care deployment, to how you are entertained and educated, can we control what most of us can’t understand?
Featuring:
Mr. Stewart A. Baker, Of Counsel, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Mr. Christopher Ekren, Global Technology Counsel, Sony Corporation of America
Ms. Victoria Luxardo Jeffries, Director, United States Public Policy, Meta
Prof. John C. Yoo, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
Moderator: Hon. Stephen Alexander Vaden, Judge, United States Court of International Trade -
Over the past year, college campuses have been filled with student protests and demonstrations. A large number of these protests involved students camping out on campus for weeks, taking over administrative and academic buildings, harassing and threatening other students and faculty members, and destruction of property. Many administrators have refused to discipline students or enforce their policies because of First Amendment concerns. Instead, they contend the First Amendment prohibited them from punishing the students or enforcing their policies because the students were engaged in protected speech. When it comes to protests and demonstrations, what does the First Amendment protect? When does protected speech cross the line into unprotected conduct? What duties does a public university have to protect its students from harassment and intimidation? How does a university determine what speech is likely to incite imminent violence?
This panel will examine the scope and limits of the First Amendment, especially as it relates to public colleges and universities.
Featuring:
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus, Founder and Chairman, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Dean Thomas J. Miles, Dean & Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics, The University of Chicago Law School
Prof. Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Prof. Eugene Volokh, Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor, UCLA School of Law
Moderator: Hon. David R. Stras, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit -
As international courts have addressed issues arising from the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars, we will explore whether engagement with the ICC and ICJ institutions is beneficial or harmful to the United States and how U.S. policymakers should approach these courts.
Feature:
Hon. Charles Brower, Judge, Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and Arbitrator Member, Twenty Essex Chambers
Prof. Diane Desierto, Professor of Law and Global Affairs, Notre Dame Law School; Faculty Director, LL.M. in International Human Rights Law; Global Director, Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic
Prof. Richard Epstein, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University Law
Prof. Michael A. Newton, Professor of the Practice of Law and Professor of the Practice of Political Science, Vanderbilt Law School
Moderator: Hon. Stephanos Bibas, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit -
Featuring a conversation addressing regulation of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, tech platform regulation, privacy, spectrum policy, broadband funding and other government spending, and consumer protection issues.
Featuring:
Ms. Robin Colwell, Principal, BGR Government Affairs, LLC
Mr. Scott Blake Harris, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Crest Hill Advisors
Mr. Umair Javed, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, CTIA
Prof. Mario Loyola, Research Assistant Professor, Florida International University; Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Moderator: Hon. Michael H. Park, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit -
Critics have raised concerns about the inadequacy of the consumer welfare standard for the 21st century, while others defend the standard as a proven and manageable test. Has the focus on consumer welfare led to under-enforcement? Is there an objective and administrable alternative to replace it? This panel will discuss which approach to antitrust is best and ways forward to increase U.S. competitiveness and economic growth.
Featuring:
Mr. Adam Cella, Chief Counsel for the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust, House Committee on the Judiciary
Mr. Thomas DeMatteo, General Counsel, Senate Judiciary Committee
Mr. Michael Kades, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice
Mr. Christopher Mufarrige, Chief of Staff and Attorney Advisor, FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak
Mr. Alex Okuliar, Co-Chair of Morrison Foerster’s Global Antitrust Law Practice Group, Morrison Foerster
Moderator: Hon. Jennifer Walker Elrod, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit -
Featuring:
Hon. Eric Schmitt, United States Senator, Missouri
Moderator: Mr. Elbert Lin, Former Solicitor General, West Virginia; Chair, Issues & Appeals, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP -
Accomplishing anything of significance in this political environment requires courage. The legal industry has a few well-trodden pathways: law school, clerkship, large law firm, and perhaps a brief stint in government. Yet without courage, there is little potential for lasting impact along these pathways. While prior administrations may have emphasized conventional career paths and credentials in their selection process, there is an emerging interest in selecting for courage, independent thought, and sound judgment.
But what paths best equip future leaders to accomplish great things in public service? Does the pressure to keep the option to return to a large law firm hinder one from accomplishing great things? What should we be doing to support people who demonstrate courage - including those who make the courageous choice to balance their careers with responsibilities to family and children?
Featuring:
Ms. Libby Locke, Partner, Clare Locke LLP
Hon. Jonathan Mitchell, Principal, Mitchell Law PLLC
Hon. Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General, Tennessee
Ms. Annie Donaldson Talley, Partner, Luther Strange & Associates
MODERATOR: Hon. Gregory G. Katsas, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit -
Most would agree that all of these [tribalism, polarization, racism, religious enmity, and antisemitism] are bad for society. They are perhaps a particular threat in a democracy like ours, which is predicated on the idea that people of very different backgrounds and ideas can coexist peacefully. Following decades of improvement in all these areas, they seem to be resurgent in the United States. What role have the law, the courts, and the culture played in contributing to this state of affairs? How can law best be deployed to combat it and what is the role of civil society vs. law?
Featuring:
Mr. Jay Edelson, Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Prof. Michael W. McConnell, Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law, Director of the Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Prof. David M. Schizer, Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law and Economics and Dean Emeritus, Columbia Law School
Mr. Matt Stoller, Director of Research, American Economic Libertie
Moderator: Hon. Steven J. Menashi, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit -
The Supreme Court's latest term was one of its most significant for administrative law. The Court ended Chevron deference, declared a right to a jury trial in securities fraud adjudications at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and expanded the statute of limitations to challenge agency decisions. Other leading cases included a challenge to a major Trump-era rulemaking on guns and a challenge to a significant federal environmental implementation plan. The Court's opinions have raised important questions about the separation of powers, the role of Congress, and the future of regulatory governance in America. Now that the Court has issued its rulings, the panel considers: What comes next for the regulated public, Congress, executive branch agencies, and the States?
Featuring
Hon. Paul D. Clement, Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Prof. Cary Coglianese, Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science; Director, Penn Program on Regulation, Penn Carey Law, University of Pennsylvania
Prof. Philip A. Hamburger, Maurice & Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Hon. Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, Judge, United States District Court, Middle District of Florida
Moderator: Hon. Neomi Rao, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit -
In recent years, the legal profession has increasingly prioritized diversity in law firm hiring and litigation leadership, driven by demands from corporate clients, alumni, and judges. Efforts to increase the representation of women and non-white lawyers have become so integral that they are now reflected in proposed formal rules, such as the FRCP 16.1, which would require judges to consider identity characteristics when selecting leadership teams for multidistrict litigation (MDL). This potential codification raises important questions about the legality and implications of identity-based preferences in the legal profession. How should client preferences for diversity be balanced with Title VII commitments, and what role should diversity of background play in law firm hiring and the selection of MDL legal teams? This panel will explore these issues, examining both the legal and policy arguments surrounding identity-based preferencing in legal employment.
Featuring:
Dean andré douglas pond cummings, Dean and Professor of Law, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
Prof. Darrell D. Jackson, Winston Howard Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Wyoming College of Law
Mr. Roger Severino, Vice President, Domestic Policy & The Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Ms. Tobi Young, Senior Vice President Legal & Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Cognizant; Board of Directors, Halliburton
Moderator: Hon. Patrick J. Bumatay, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit - Show more
