Town Hall

Judicial Independence and the Federal Courts: A Historical Perspective

Thursday, December 13

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America’s leading scholars and federal judges join the Center for three panel discussions exploring the evolution of judicial independence from the Founding to today.

This program is presented in partnership with the Federal Judicial Center and generously sponsored in-part by John Aglialoro.
 

 

Participants

Panel 1: Judicial Independence and the Early Federal Courts

  • Paul Finkelman is the president of Gratz College. He has held a number of endowed chairs as a tenured professor or as a visitor, including the Ariel F. Sallows Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Saskatchewan, the John Hope Franklin Chair in American Legal History at Duke Law School, and the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor at Albany Law School. He held the Fulbright Chair in Human Rights and Social Justice at the University of Ottawa School of Law, in Ottawa, Canada and was also the John E. Murray Visiting Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
     
  • Alison LaCroix is the Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. She is also an Associate Member of the University of Chicago Department of History. LaCroix is a scholar of US legal history specializing in constitutional law, federalism, and 18th and 19th-century legal thought. LaCroix is currently writing a book on US constitutional discourse between 1815 and 1861, for which she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.

  • Michael Gerhardt is scholar-in-residence at the National Constitution Center, Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of North Carolina Law School, and the Richard Beeman Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Gerhard frequently appears on CNN as an expert and commentator on the impeachment process. He is the author several books including, The Federal Impeachment Process, The Forgotten Presidents, and Impeachment: What Everyone Needs to Know.
     

Panel 2: Judicial Independence and the Federal Courts in the 20th Century

  • Stephen B. Burbank is the David Berger Professor for the Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Burbank is the author of definitive works on federal court rulemaking, inter jurisdictional preclusion, litigation sanctions, international civil litigation, litigation retrenchment, and judicial independence and accountability. He is co-editor (with Barry Friedman) of Judicial Independence at the Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Approach.
     
  • Tara Leigh Grove is professor of law at the College of William & Mary Law School. Grove’s research focuses on the federal judiciary and the constitutional separation of powers. She has published with such prestigious law journals as the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, New York University Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Cornell Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. Her articles are cited and discussed in leading Federal Courts casebooks.
     
  • Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
     

Panel 3: Judicial Independence and the Federal Courts in the 21st Century

  • John D. Bates is the Senior District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He has been Chair of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules of the Judicial Conference since 2015. Bates previously served in the U.S. Army, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and was Chief of the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office.

  • Diane P. Wood is the Chief Circuit Judge for the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She currently serves as senior lecturer in law at The University of Chicago Law School where she previously served as the Harold J. and Marion F. Green Professor of International Legal Studies, Associate Dean, professor of law, and assistant professor of law. She has also worked for the U.S. State Department and Covington & Burling.
     
  • John S. Cooke is the director of the Federal Judicial Center. He joined the Federal Judical Center in 1998 and previously served as its director of judicial education programs, head of the Center's Education Division, and Deputy Director. Before his 20-year career at the Federal Judicial Center, Cooke was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Judge Advocate General's Corps.
     

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