April 8-10:

April 4:

Jacob Hacker: Professor Hacker, a rising star in the Yale Political Science Department and author of several volumes on the American welfare state, gave a talk to the Yale Law students about economic instability and the restoration of government institutions to protect middle class and working class families from economic risk.

March 31:

Brown Bag Lunch Series: Juliet Schor, Boston College Sociology professor and author of the best-sellers The Overworked American and The Overspent American, as well as Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture, discussed some of the central themes that run through her work, especially the role of social structures and individual agency in fueling unsustainable cycles of overwork and overconsumption.

March 22:

Matt Cooper: Time correspondent threatened with jail time in the Valerie Plame grand jury investigation spoke at the Law School. He discussed proposals for a journalist-source privilege and the appeal of his recent contempt conviction. The event was co-sponsored with the Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellowshop and Fund.

March 7:

March 1:

Meeting with Bruce Ackerman: We met with Professor Ackerman to discuss his vision for the Constitution in 2020 Conference and his current research on judicial nominations, reforming the election process, and democratization of the "ownership society."

December 11: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Heather Gerken, Harvard election law professor, spoke to us about her own research, her ideas about democracy in the 21st century and the constitution in 2020, her career as a young professor, and her work with Harvard's ACS chapter.

December 4-5:

December 2: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor whose work on the "middle class squeeze" inspired a key message of the John Edwards campaign (and to some degree the Kerry campaign) spoke to Yale ACS about her research findings that today's middle-class families face many more expenses and risks than families in the past, and pay more for such fixed costs as housing, health care, and college, spurring a massive increase in personal bankruptcy.

November 8:

October 20: Priscilla Smith '91, director of the Domestic Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights, spoke about reproductive rights litigation from the perspective of an on-the-ground litigator. Ms. Smith spoke to our chapter just after her latest major victory, Carhart v. Ashcroft, the successful federal challenge to the "Partial Birth Abortion Act" that had just been decided in Nebraska on September 8th. (Ms. Smith was co-counsel in Stenberg v. Carhart, the U.S. Supreme Court case striking down a Nebraska "partial birth" law on similar grounds.)

October 7:

October 6:

October 5: David Boies '66 discussed "Lawyering and Politics, from the Florida Recount to Fahrenheit 9/11." Boies, who was the lead counsel for Al Gore in the Florida recount controversy in 2000, recently negotiated the politically delicate release of Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11. Mr. Boies delivered a riveting speech about these cases at the boundary of politics and law. Robert Post, the David Boies Professor of Law at YLS, introduced him.

September 30: Jesselyn Radack '95 became a whistleblower after she refused, from her post at the DOJ's ethics office, to approve of plans to interrogate John Walker Lindh (the "American Taliban") without his attorney. When the government later denied that anyone from her office had raised ethical objections, her emails hit the pages of Newsweek, causing an instant scandal that briefly derailed the confirmation of Judge Michael Chertoff and got Radack hounded out of the Justice Department. She spoke about the Lindh case, her role as a whistleblower, and the Bush administration's ongoing efforts to destroy her legal career.

June 18-20: ACS National Convention in Washington, DC: A solid contingent of YLS students headed to Washington for the ACS National Convention, where the keynote speech was delivered by Justice Stephen Breyer and a series of fascinating panels and plenary sessions explored topics from Brown to same sex marriage, from terrorism to the future of judicial review. Our chapter held a reception at the convention with Dean-Designate Harold Koh for YLS alumni, faculty, and students, which was generously hosted by the firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr at their new building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

May 6:

April 27:

Strategic Litigation in the Supreme Court (and Below): Seth Waxman, former Solicitor General and partner at Wilmer Cutler & Pickering discussed McConnell v. FEC (upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform); Miranda Massie of Scheff & Washington and Craig Goldblatt of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering discussed the Grutter and Gratz cases; and Paul Smith, partner at Jenner & Block, discussed Lawerence v. Texas. Professor Paul Gewirtz moderated the discussion. April 13: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Ted Ruger, Associate Professor, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, discussed "How Do I Live My Life as a Progressive Lawyer?"

Photo: From Left, Waxman, Massie, Goldblatt, Smith, Gewirtz.

April 7:

March 1:

February 26:

February 24:

Fall 2003

December 3:

December 3:

December 2:

November 18:

November 13:

October 9:

September 30:

September 29:

September 23: