FedSoc Forums

Since January 2025, the National Labor Relations Board has had only two sitting members—one less than necessary for a quorum. When it lacks a quorum, the Board can’t do things like resolve alleged unfair labor practices or rule on election-related objections. Seeing a policy gap, some states are moving to fill it. California, New York, and Massachusetts are all considering legislation that would transfer at least some of the inactive Board’s duties to state agencies. These bills have sparked a controversy about federal preemption and the role of states in regulating labor relations. Our panelists will flesh out the debates and explain where the debate is likely to go in the coming months.
Featuring:

Alexander T. MacDonald, Shareholder & Co-Chair of the Workplace Policy Institute, Littler Mendelson P.C.
Prof. Benjamin I. Sachs, Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry, Harvard Law School
(Moderator) G. Roger King, Senior Labor and Employment Counsel, HR Policy Association

The United States Supreme Court first acknowledged what would become the church autonomy doctrine, also known as the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, in the 1871 case of Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679 (1871). That case involved a schism in a Presbyterian church in Louisville, Kentucky, over the issue of slavery. The Court fashioned a principle that civil courts should not decide issues regarding faith, doctrine, and membership. Later, in Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral, 344 U.S. 94 (1952), the Court cemented the rule of deference to ecclesiastical bodies in internal church disputes, grounding the rule in the First Amendment and applying it to states through the Fourteenth Amendment. However, a competing rule emerged in certain circumstances in a 5-4 decision in Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595 (1979). In Jones, a divided Court held that civil courts may also use “neutral principles” of law to resolve church schisms involving property disputes. Today, courts wrestle with the dilemma of applying deference or neutral principles and face challenging questions regarding the nature of the church autonomy doctrine, including whether it is jurisdictional in nature and its application in a variety of circumstances.
Join us for a conversation among religious liberty advocates on these and related topics.
Featuring:

Prof. Carl H. Esbeck, R. B. Price and Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Missouri School of Law
L. Martin Nussbaum, Partner, First & Fourteenth PLLC
Eric Rassbach, Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberties
Hiram Sasser, Executive General Counsel, First Liberty Institute
(Moderator) Hon. Brantley Starr, District Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas

The outcome of FTC v. Meta could reshape the social media landscape as well as U.S. merger policy. For the first time, the government is seeking to unwind two acquisitions more than a decade old, Facebook's purchase of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. In its complaint, the Federal Trade Commission alleges that Facebook sought to eliminate threats to its social networking monopoly and ultimately harmed consumers through increased user ad loads and decreased quality and user privacy. Meta argues that the social media market is flush with competitors, including X, Snapchat, and TikTok, and that its investments helped both Instagram and WhatsApp expand rapidly. The trial concluded on May 27, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and a decision is expected anytime. Join this FedSoc Forum as we discuss the case and its potential impact.
Featuring:

Slade Bond, Chair, Public Policy and Legislative Affairs Practice, Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP
Jennifer Huddleston, Senior Fellow, Technology Policy, Cato Institute
Prof. Todd Zywicki, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Moderator: Asheesh Agarwal, Consultant, American Edge Project and U.S. Chamber of Commerce

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Join the Federalist Society for a timely and compelling discussion on the RESTORE Act, legislation aimed at overturning the Supreme Court’s eBay v. MercExchange decision and reinstating the presumptive right to injunctions for patent holders. This panel brings together some of the top voices in intellectual property: former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu, Professors Adam Mossoff and Kristen Osenga, and Chris Storm, IP Legal Director at Uber (speaking in his personal capacity). The conversation will be moderated by Judge Ryan Holte of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The webinar will explore how the RESTORE Act seeks to rebalance the patent system in favor of property rights. Whether you're a policymaker, practitioner, or academic, don’t miss this opportunity to hear from leading experts on one of the most consequential patent reform efforts in recent history.
Featuring:

Hon. Andrei Iancu, Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Prof. Adam Mossoff, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Dean Kristen Osenga, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Austin E. Owen Research Scholar & Professor of Law, The University of Richmond School of Law
Chris Storm, IP Legal Director, Uber
Moderator: Judge Ryan T. Holte, U.S. Court of Federal Claims and Jurist-In-Residence Professor of Law, The University of Akron School of Law

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Join the Federalist Society for a webinar on the ongoing legal challenges to the Biden-era Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, a component of the Inflation Reduction Act. Ashley Parrish, Partner at King & Spalding, will provide an analysis of the multi-faceted litigation. He will explore how pharmaceutical companies are arguing that the program prevents accountability by granting the government "unlimited, unreviewable, unchecked rulemaking authority" over drug prices, and that it compels speech by forcing participation in agreements that imply voluntary negotiation. Mr. Parrish will also examine recent appellate court rulings and forecast the program's future, including its implications for the broader healthcare landscape.

Featuring:

Ashley C. Parrish, Partner, King & Spalding, LLP

On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order effectively ending birthright citizenship for children born to mothers who are unlawfully present or temporary lawful residents in the United States and whose fathers are not lawful permanent residents at the time of the child’s birth. One day later, four states and three individuals challenged this order in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, which three days later granted a universal temporary restraining order enjoining the government from implementing this order. Two weeks later, this became a nationwide injunction. Other similar nationwide injunctions have since been issued from the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The government appealed all of these, and the Supreme Court took the case in order to decide the issue of whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions.
On June 27, 2025, the Court ruled in favor of the government, holding that “universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.” The Court granted the government’s applications for a partial stay of these injunctions, “but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.”
Join this FedSoc Forum to discuss this case, its decision, and future implications.
Featuring:

Ed Wenger, Partner, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC
Moderator: Elbert Lin, Chair, Issues & Appeals, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP


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Early in his Chairmanship, Federal Communications Chair Chairman Brendan Carr established a new Council for National Security within the agency. The council aims to "leverage the full range of the Commission’s regulatory, investigatory, and enforcement authorities to protect American and counter foreign adversaries, particularly the threats posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)." Join this FedSoc Forum to discuss the council and its implications for the telecommunications and national security spaces.
Featuring:

Adam Chan, Director, FCC Council on National Security
Moderator: Megan L. Brown, Partner, Wiley Rein LLP

Title IX's guarantee against discrimination on the basis of sex in education has been the subject of intensely differing Executive Branch interpretations over the years. These disputes include fundamental disagreements over the meaning of the word "sex" as used in the law, the manner in which the law applies to sex-separated sports and private facilities, the role of Title IX coordinators in responding to sexual harassment, and the due process to which individuals are entitled in campus disciplinary proceedings.Join us for a discussion on the right about how the ever-changing enforcement of Title IX has affected students, families, educators, and institutions and a potential legislative solution to ever-changing interpretations of Title IX.Featuring:

Tyler W. Coward, Lead Counsel, Government Affairs, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)
Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President & Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Paul F. Zimmerman, Senior Counsel, Policy & Regulatory, Defense of Freedom Institute
(Moderator) Robert S. Eitel, Co-Founder and President, Defense of Freedom Institute

Over the past decade, electricity prices for consumers have risen by more than 22% on average. At the same time, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)—the international body responsible for setting reliability and security standards for the North American power grid—has issued increasingly urgent warnings about the growing risks to the U.S. electric power system's reliability.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), an independent agency established by Congress, plays a central role in this space. Under the Federal Power Act, FERC oversees the interstate transmission and wholesale sale of electricity and is responsible for reviewing, approving, and enforcing NERC’s reliability standards.
Nearly 30 years ago, FERC fundamentally changed how it regulates the electric power industry. Did those changes contribute to the growing risks to the future reliability of the U.S. electric power system we now face? Or have they helped prevent even greater problems? Most importantly, what should federal electric regulation look like going forward?
Join us for a dynamic and in-depth conversation with two seasoned experts as they explore these critical questions about the future of electricity regulation in the United States.
Featuring:

John Kennerly Davis, Jr., Senior Attorney, Former Deputy Attorney General of Virginia
Ari Peskoe, Director, Electricity Law Initiative, Harvard Law School
(Moderator) Robert T. Carney, Senior Counsel, Caplin & Drysdale; Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown Law

Whether AI training and generation is a fair use under copyright law puts two important American business sectors in opposition, and each looks to the various branches of the federal government for answers. Fundamentally, essentially all training of AI models involves copying of copyrighted materials, and many outputs from AI systems also may be substantially similar to copyrighted material and thus infringing if they are not fair uses.
On May 9, 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office released a pre-publication version of the third and final part of its report on Copyright and AI, focused on Generative AI Training. The report concludes that some is fair use but some is not, and urges that existing efforts to engage in licensing of copyrighted content continue. Meanwhile, over forty cases on the issue are ongoing in the United States alone, with cases ongoing in another eight nations as well. The District Court in Delaware has ruled that at least one such case was not a fair use, and further rulings are expected soon from around the country. Meanwhile the White House has indicated an interest in AI policy and may have its own prerogatives.
Leading experts will discuss the issue and answer questions on this fast-moving and important issue.
Featuring:

Meredith Rose, Senior Policy Counsel, Public Knowledge
Regan Smith, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, News/Media Alliance
Moderator: Zvi Rosen, Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University School of Law