Federalist Society Speaker Series at UVA Law

Christina Martin of the Pacific Legal Foundation joined Professor Cynthia Nicoletti to discuss the Court's decision in Tyler v. Hennepin County.  

The ascendancy of conservative legal thought has transformed the legal landscape.  But has the conservative legal movement been a success?  Edward Whelan, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, joined the chapter to discuss the movement and its effects. 

Jason Pye from the Due Process Institute joined the chapter to unpack the conservative case for criminal justice reform, as well as evaluate the First Step Act.  The FSA was signed by President Trump in 2018 and is an example of a bipartisan reform proposal that garnered support across the aisle. 

Originalism has become the preferred method of constitutional interpretation for the majority of the Supreme Court, with Justice Elena Kagan stating that “we are all originalists.” But what exactly is originalism, and is it a good idea? Professors Sai Prakash from UVA Law and Ben Johnson from the University of Florida Levin College of Law joined the chapter to unpack the “what” and “why” of originalism. 

Qualified immunity is, according to Dean John Jeffries, "the most important doctrine in the law of constitutional torts," and has been particularly important in recent years because of conversations surrounding police brutality. But is it Constitutional, and is it good policy? To answer that, the Chapter heard from Ben Field. Field is an attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he has litigated extensively on a variety of civil liberty issues, including qualified immunity. 

Professors Josh Blackman and Amanda Frost joined the chapter for a conversation on judicial ethics. This past summer saw a wave of controversy surrounding the question of whether actions taken by members of the Supreme Court violated ethical codes. Professor Blackman is a leading conservative scholar who has written and discussed this issue at length, while UVA's own Professor Frost is a leading expert on judicial ethics, who testified this past summer in front of Congress on the need for SCOTUS to adopt a code of ethics.