FedSoc Events

On January 15, 2019, the Federalist Society's Civil Rights and Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Groups cosponsored a conference on "The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment." The first panel discussed the question of whether the right to bear arms encompasses a right to carry handguns in public. Featuring: Stephen P. Halbrook, Senior Fellow, Independent Institute; and author of The Founders...

This panel will focus on questions of academic rigor and intellectual orthodoxy in modern American law schools. What is the role of academic rigor in legal scholarship and education? To what extent can it coexist with an intellectual orthodoxy? Is there an intellectual orthodoxy in American law schools? When does an orthodoxy reflect accumulated wisdom, and when does it reflect unexamined assumpti...

There have been renewed challenges to the Chicago School framework for antitrust law. Some have argued that it fails to address growing inequality among people and concentration among industries. In cases like Ohio v. American Express, the Supreme Court appears more divided on the application of its principles. This panel will discuss these important developments. Featuring: Einer Elhauge, Harvard...

Over the past year, there have been a number of discussions about social media and freedom of speech. Some critics blame social media companies for inadequately monitoring their content and promoting “fake news” at the instigation of foreign governments. Others criticize these companies’ new algorithms or content mediation policies, revised in some instances to respond to the fir...

On January 3, 2019, the Federalist Society hosted the Young Legal Scholars Paper Presentations. The presentations were a part of the 21st Annual Faculty Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Featuring: Vince Buccola, University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School: “The Logic and Limits of Municipal Bankruptcy” Paul Crane, University of Richmond School of Law: “Incorporating Colla...

On January 3, 2019, the Federalist Society hosted a luncheon debate on qualified immunity. The debate was a part of the 21st Annual Faculty Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Featuring: William Baude, University of Chicago Law School Christopher Walker, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Moderator: Tara Leigh Grove, William & Mary Law School

Conventional wisdom holds that the original meaning of the "due process of law," as used in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment, is procedural - forbidding deprivations of life, liberty or property without appropriate procedural safeguards and unless they are pursuant to a duly enacted law governing the conduct giving rise to the deprivation. Recent originalist scholarship, however, calls this view...

When Congress delegates to a federal agency the responsibility for implementing, administering, and enforcing a law, it also authorizes the agency to make and promulgate rules about how it will do that. These rules will often be issued first as a notice of proposed rulemaking, giving the public the opportunity to comment before the regulation becomes final and goes into effect. Many agencies, howe...

When can the government require you to speak, or to host speech on your property, or to pay for speech you dislike? Three of the Court’s 2018 cases – the Masterpiece Cakeshop wedding cake/same-sex wedding case, the Janus union dues case, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates pregnancy crisis center case -- all involved this question. So do many other matters that are...

RESOLVED: District courts do not have the authority to enter universal injunctions. Prof. John Harrison, James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law Mr. Neal Katyal, Partner, Hogan Lovells US LLP Moderator: Hon. Beth A. Williams, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, United States Department of Justice Introduction: Mr. Eugene B. Meyer, Presiden...

With the election of the 116th Congress there are many interesting aspects of the intersection between the Executive and Legislative branches to consider. Perhaps there is no topic more volatile or intriguing than how the new Congress will interact with the Executive in the realm of oversight. What does the Constitution and the track record of prior Congresses tell us about the coming months and h...

On December 10, 2018, Senator Jon Kyl (AZ) spoke to the DC Young Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Senator Kyl reflected on his time in the Senate and the role of Congress. As always, the Federalist Society takes no particular legal or public policy positions. All opinions expressed are those of the speaker. Featuring: Senator Jon Kyl, United States Senator, Arizona Moderator: Lisa Ezell,...

Technology progress in recent years has been driven in large part by the continuous generation of massive amounts of data (“Big Data”) and its processing by means of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). Self-driving cars, personalized advertising, and automated medical diagnostics are examples of a technology trend that will accelerate in the future, creating unseen before oppor...

Justice Scalia put it bluntly in Morrison v. Olson: “There are now no lines.” Morrison, 478 at 726 (Scalia, J., dissenting). This is, perhaps, an unsurprising observation, considering the majority in Humphrey's Executor v. United States recognized that, “between the decision in the Myers v. United States case, which sustains the unrestrictable power of the President to remove pur...

The vast web of federal and state laws protecting employees stands or falls on a single concept: Is there an employment relationship? Payment of overtime, responsibility for employment taxes, union obligations, responsibility for workplace discrimination, workers compensation – every employment law obligation depends on the existence of an employment relationship. Thus, it may be surprising...

The administrative state, with roots over a century old, was founded on the premise that Congress lacked the expertise to deal with the many complex issues facing government in a fast-changing country, and that it was unhelpfully mired in and influenced by politics, leading to bad outcomes when it did act. The alternative was to establish administrative agencies, each with assigned areas of respon...

U.S. businesses operating in the global economy, and non-U.S. businesses operating or looking to invest in the United States, must account for an increasingly prominent national security and personal security law architecture applicable to international trade and investment. Businesses in the United States are both the world’s largest foreign direct investors, and the largest single national...

Antitrust enforcers in the post-Microsoft era, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, have been under more or less continuous criticism as insufficiently active. Proponents of this view have offered a number of routes to more vigorous and creative enforcement, ranging from re-writing the core statutes to address high tech industries and following the lead of the European Commission...

Stare decisis – “to stand by things decided” – is the doctrine under which courts follow their own precedents, and precedents of superior courts. Proponents of stare decisis assert that it promotes predictability in the law, reduces revisiting settled issues, and increases reliance on judicial decisions, all while enhancing the legitimacy of the judicial branch. Critics of...

On November 16, 2018, Secretary Alex Azar offered an address on the unintended consequences of health care regulation in the United States. Hon. Alex Azar, Secretary, United States Department of Health & Human Services Introduction: Mr. Dean Reuter, General Counsel | Vice President & Director, Practice Groups, The Federalist Society

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 freedo...

On November 15, 2018, Sen. Mike Lee (UT) gave the opening address at the Federalist Society's 2018 National Lawyers Convention. Lee discussed the sharp divisions in modern politics and the role of conflict in our constitutional republic. Hon. Mike S. Lee, United States Senate, Utah Introduction: Mr. Leonard A. Leo, Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society

Mr. Richard Brookhiser, Senior Editor, National Review and Author, John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court Hon. S. Kyle Duncan, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit Hon. Kevin Newsom, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit Mr. David B. Rivkin, Jr., Partner, BakerHostetler Moderator: Hon. William H. Pryor, Jr., United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit