Monday, November 16, 2009

Shark Returns

I was in DC at the end of last week to attend the National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society for Law & Policy Studies. It's always a great meeting with great panels presenting a diversity of views. That's something that folks who view the Federalist Society as the Opus Dei of the legal profession don't understand. (They don't understand Opus Dei either, but that's another matter.)

For example, on a panel discussing the relationship between capital and labor, we heard from two conservatives, Amity Schlaes and Todd Zywicki, But we also heard from Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect and Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO. This is standard practice at FedSoc events. One of the more interesting discussions was a presentation by Burt Neuborne, a prominent liberal law prof at NYU, of his recent paper advocating a structural reading of the Bill of Rights (to, in effect, read the document in the manner of a poem)and Randy Barnett's thoughtful response.

It's also a great opportunity to draw energy from and connect with national figures and folks with similar interests around the country. I had, for example, the privilege of sitting at dinner with Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom and was able to discuss the possibility of the two of them doing an event at Marquette.

But, because I was there, I wasn't here to blog on the Gableman decision or the decision to try certain Guantanomo detainees in New York or Tom Barrett's decision to run for Governor. Watch this space for more.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could you make a clear distinction between the Federalist during the founding of our country and what this group stands for?

Terrence Berres said...

Here's the Federalist Society on its purpose.