Judges, CEOs, Scholars, and a General
A Look at Some of the Speakers who Visited the Law School in 2017
"Lunchtime talks" have long been a tradition at the University of Chicago Law School, with many dozens of speakers visiting each year to discuss and debate legal issues, share their experiences, and offer students insight about career paths. Some talks, of course, take place at other times, but on any given day, it is common to have two or three lunchtime events from which to choose. Below, you'll find a sampling of the speakers who visited the Law School in 2017.
Marla Messing, Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee: “Olympic Dreams: A Conversation with Vice President and Executive Director of Sport Leader Relations for LA 2028”
Katherine Kaufka Walts, Director of the Center for the Human Rights of Children at Loyola University: “Child Trafficking and Exploitation”
Major Nicholas C. Frommelt, Judge Advocate General for the US Air Force: “Life as a Military Lawyer”
Judge Merrick Garland, US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit: “A Conversation with Chief Judge Merrick Garland”
Debbie Chizewer, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and Emily Cofee, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law: “East Chicago Lead Crisis”
Aaron Lindstrom, Solicitor General of Michigan: “The Anatomy of an Appeal”
Andrew Wylie, DLA Piper: “The Global Investment Funds Industry”
Earl Maltz, Professor of Law at Rutgers University, and Aziz Huq, Professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and: “The Travel Ban: A Debate”
Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, Vice President of the International Court of Justice: “Diversity of Legal Traditions and International Law”
James Cole, Jr., former General Counsel of the US Department of Education and former Acting Deputy Secretary of Education, “Trailblazing and the Obama Education Department”
Steve Croley, Latham & Watkins: “The Future of Energy Policy in the United States and Reflections on the Department of Energy”
Jake Braun, Cambridge Global Advisors and University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy: “Law, Business, and Cybersecurity”
Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor at George Mason Law School: “Rewriting the Rules for War? Cyber, Robotic, and Space Weapons in the 21st Century”
Dr. Anthony Kreis, Chicago-Kent College of Law: “The Trump Administration’s Stance on Gay Rights Administratively and in Litigation”
Kallol Biswas, Charles River Laboratories: “FDA Inspections: Where Science and Regulations Meet”
MiAngel Cody, Decarceration Collective: “Dismantling Mass Incarceration & Envisioning Mass Decarceration: The Role of Advocates and Allies”
Eugene Kontorovich, Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law: “Disputing Occupation: Israel's Borders in International Law”
John McGinnis, Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law: “Bitcoin: Order without Law in the Digital Age”
Judge Michelle Friedland, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: “A Conversation with the Hon. Michelle Friedland”
Ashley Keller, Burford Capital, and Tom Dupree, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher: “Supreme Court Roundup 2017”
Kaethe Morris Hoffer, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, and Brenda Myers-Powell, The Dreamcatcher’s Foundation: “Fighting Sexual Exploitation in Chicago”
Wendy Netter Epstein, Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Law School: “Nudging Patient Decision-Making”
Jason Flom, CEO of Lava Records, Antoine Day, Howard Area Employment Resource Center, and Laura Caldwell, Professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law: “Lending a Mic to the Wrongfully Convicted”
Preston M. Torbert, Baker & McKenzie LLP: “An American Lawyer’s Experience in China: The Later Years, 1982-2005”
Mark Bradley, Faculty Director, Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, and Imam Malik Mujahid, Burma Task Force USA: “The Rohingya Crisis: How Did We Get Here and What Now?”
David M. Rubenstein, the Carlyle Group: “A Conversation with David M. Rubenstein"
James T. Gathii, Loyola University Chicago School of Law: “Agriculture Globalization and Developing Countries’ Lack of Food Sovereignty”
Lucien Greaves, Co-Founder and Spokesperson for the Satanic Temple: “The Satanic Temple and the Law: Religious Freedom in the Modern World”
Joe D. Briggs, Sr., National Football League Players Association: “Politics, Law, and Football: A Conversation with the Public Policy Counsel at the NFLPA”
David Stovall, Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago: “Educational Justice: How Race and Socio-economic Status Impact the Quality of Schools in Chicago”
Rachel Zemke, Myka Held, and Karen Dolan, Legal Assistance Foundation: “Wraparound Legal Services for Domestic Violence Survivors”
Tara Smith, Professor at the University of Texas at Austin: “The Free Speech Vernacular: Conceptual Confusions in the Way We Speak About Speech”
Sally Yates, former Acting Attorney General: “The Rule of Law under Siege”
Michele Cunningham, Victim Advocate at Chicago Hearing Society, and Michelle Mendiola-McKinnie, Youth Program Manager and Domestic Violence Advocate at Chicago Hearing Society: “Deaf/Hard of Hearing Victims of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault”
Chris Fennell, Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: “The Social Construction of Race and Gender: White Privilege in the Law”
Tommy Maranges, Co-Creator of the Secret Hitler Card Game: “What Does Secret Hitler Tell Us about Politics”
Michelle Mbekeani-Wiley, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law: “The School to Prison Pipeline: Policing in Chicago Public Schools”
Steven Duffield, Lead Legislative Advocate for the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act: “The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act”
Judge Paul J. Watford, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: “A Conversation with the Hon. Paul J. Watford”
Kenneth L. Marcus, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law: “Fighting the New Anti-Semitism”
David Axelrod, Director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics: “Believer: Why Politics Still Matters”
Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Professor at the University of Notre Dame: “Justice Scalia was Right in Oregon v. Smith: Why the Original Meaning of the Free Exercise Clause Does Not Require Religious Exemptions”
Andrew Crocker, Electronic Frontier Foundation: “The Electronic Frontier Foundation Government Hacking and Digital Civil Liberties”
Jordan Ginsburg, Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of Louisiana: “Fighting Child Sex Trafficking”
Justice Don Willett, Supreme Court of Texas, “Flunking on the Founders: Civic Illiteracy & the Rule of Law”
Annette Moore, Civilian Office of Police Accountability: “The Future of Chicago Police Accountability”
Anver M. Emon, Law Professor at the University of Toronto: ‘Interrogating the “Islamic State’: Language, Politics, and Law in the Muslim World”
Judge Timothy Tymkovich, US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit: “Judicial Independence from Jay to Roberts”
Caleb Probst, Chicago Alliance against Sexual Exploitation, and Mary Anne Case, Professor at the University of Chicago Law School: “Toxic Masculinity”
Michael Paulsen, Professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, and
Stephanos Bibas, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School: “Prisoners without Prisons: The New Big Government”
Andre Geverola, US Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and David Tanury, Department of Labor: “Pursuing a Career in Federal Government: A Conversation with Alums in Federal Agencies”
Michael Tiboris, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and Cameron Davis, GEI Consultants: “Contemporary Water Law and Policy Issues”
Clark Neily, Institute for Justice: “Judicial Restraint vs. Judicial Activism”
Ruoying Chen, Professor at Peking University Law School: “Legal Development in Mainland China and Hong Kong: Globalization & Localization”
Ahmad Nassar, President of NFL Players Incorporated: “Faith and Football: A Conversation with the President of the NFLPA”
David Lat, Founder of Above the Law: “Above (and Beyond) the Law: Biglaw, Blogging, and the Future of Law and Media”
Judge Edith Jones, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit: “Tentative Thoughts on Saving the Rule of Law”
Roberta Ramo, Modrall Sperling: “American Lawyers: What We Have Been, What We Must Be Now”
Aaron Nielson, Professor at Brigham Young University, “The Past and Future of Deference: From Justice Scalia to Justice Gorsuch”
Daliah Saper, Principal Attorney at Saper Law: “An Attorney Fighting Revenge Porn”
Justice David Stras, Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court: “Justice Gorsuch and the Future of the Supreme Court”
Zaid Al-Ali, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance: “Arab Constitutionalism: The Coming Revolution with Zaid Al-Ali”
Alec Karakatsanis, Executive Director, Civil Rights Corps: “Caging the Innocent”
General (ret.) Stanley McChrystal, former Commander of the International Security Assistance Force: “Adapting Domestic and International Law to Shifting National Security Concerns”
Judge Jed S. Rakoff, US District Court for the Southern District of New York: “Mass Incarceration: A View from the Federal Bench”
Kevin St. John, Bell Giftos St. John LLC: “Freedom from Speech: Current Movements to Shut Down the Marketplace of Ideas on Campus and Beyond”
Dina Rollman and Bryna Dahlin, Rollman & Dahlin LLP: “Legalize It? Legal Questions Facing the Marijuana Business”
Randall L. Kennedy, Professor at Harvard Law School: “Hamilton v. Alabama: Constitutional Law Meets Jim Crow Etiquette”
Ruth Greenwood, Campaign Legal Center: “Rank the Vote: The Voting Rights Act and Fair Local Representation”
Amanda Nguyen, President and Founder of Rise: “Changing Sexual Assault Law: Rising from Activism to Legislation”
Richard Duncan, Professor at Nebraska College of Law: “Trump vs. the ‘Popular Vote’: How the Electoral College Protects Federalism and How Federalism Protects Liberty”
Bryan Gant, White & Case: “Reverse-Payment Patent Settlements in the Pharmaceutical Industry”
Dean Strang, Partner at Strang Bradley: “Making a Murderer”
Salman Sufi, Advisor to Punjab Chief Minister on Law & Order: “Combatting Violence against Women in Pakistan”
Camilla Taylor, Lambda Legal: “What’s Next for LGBTQ Equality”
Mark Goldfeder, Director of the Law and Religion Student Program at Emory University School of Law: “BDS and the Law: The ‘Boycott, Divest, Sanction’ Movement Against Israel”
Robert P. Young Jr., Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court: “The Common Law”
Alee Minyan Li, President of Asian Development Service Group: “LGBT Rights in China and Chinese Marriage Law”
Henry Shue, University of Oxford: “Gambling with their Climate: Future Generations, Negative Emissions, and Risk Transfers”
Tyler Hagenbuch, Perkins Coie LLP: “The Resistance Will Be Regulated: Current Topics in Political Law”
Agustin Sanz and Hugh Carlson, Three Crowns LLP: “International Arbitration: An Overview & Practical Guidance”
Judge William H. Pryor, Jr., US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit: “The Unbearable Rightness of Marbury v. Madison: Its Real Lessons and Irrepressible Myth”