LAW 707 - Law and Politics

Law & Politics is a series of presentations by leading academics, practitioners, and government officials about a range of issues related to the intersection of law and politics. Students are required to attend at least seven presentations over the course of the semester. At present, there are eight scheduled presentations (seven on Thursday afternoons and one on Monday, April 1). Some presentations require students to read papers and write short 3-page pass/fail response memos (4 over the course of the semester); other presentations have no formal paper component (there will be background reading for some but not all of these sessions). Law student enrollment is capped at 20; there will also be 10 government students and some law school faculty in attendance at each session. The tentative schedule for spring 2013 speakers are January 24-Stanley Fish (Florida International and New York Times opinionator columnist; formerly at Yale, Columbia, Duke); February 7-David Cole (Georgetown Law; columnist for Nation and New York Review of book; Supreme Court advocate); February 14-Walter Dellinger (O’Melveny & Myers; former Duke law professor, former head of Office of Legal Counsel & Acting Solicitor General; Supreme Court advocate); February 21-Heather Gerken (Yale Law School); March 21-Daryl Levinson (NYU Law); April 1-Mike Klarman (Harvard Law); April 4-Rob McDowell (Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission); April 18-John Green (University of Akron Political Science). John Yoo (Berkeley Law and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel) may also be added to the schedule.