Section Highlights

July 29th, 2026 By Corinna Lain On Wednesday morning from 9-12, Tom Metzloff and Howard Wasserman gathered an incredible group of constitutional law scholars to talk about the current assaults on the federal judiciary. I was only able to catch the first 45 minutes of it, but I wish I could have stayed for more—the session started with works in progress that addressed the Supreme Court’s role in shutting down the federal judiciary—or, as our esteemed moderators put it, “the call is coming from inside the house” (bonus points for naming the movie that made that line famous!). Lively discussions of the shadow docket and civil procedure moves that I don’t really understand ensued. I’m a death penalty scholar and

July 28, 2026 By Corinna Lain On Tuesday, from 3-6:00, Nick Kahn-Fogel and Brian Owsley once again assembled a great group of criminal law & criminal procedure scholars to share their works in progress and paper ideas in a relaxed and supportive setting. The discussion group featured 10 articles and paper ideas, ranging from explorations of the meta principle of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment, to admitting prior trauma of the defendant at trial (rather than sentencing), to a theorization of the emergency aid doctrine in Case v. Montana, to the Supreme Court’s abdication of its responsibility to enforce the Eighth Amendment. Every single paper idea presented received encouragement and super helpful suggestions, leaving this attendee grateful for the great

July 26th, 2026 By Corinna Lain Sunday afternoon from 3-5:30 pm, Mike Vitiello, Rachel Wechsler, Alex Kreit, Ben Varadi, and Corinna Lain gathered to talk about “regulating sin.” Mike began by explaining the reason for the panel—this is the title of a book proposal pending with NYU Press—and defining the scope of the topic, which quickly led to a lively discussion with the audience about what we mean by the term “sin” and whether it is even capable of definition. Then the panelists spent some time critiquing the proposal, and discussing with attendees the various issues that that raised. Ben added a clarifying frame to the project by suggesting the words “the law’s approach to moral panic” as a subtitle

This annual roundtable—organized and moderated by Charles “Rocky” Rhodes (Missouri) and Tom Metzloff (Duke)—explores developments in civil procedure. As it has done every five years, the group focused on the round-number anniversary of the Roberts Court—this year, the twentieth.

Pedagogy and Assessments in Consumer Law, Commercial Law, and Bankruptcy Courses This discussion group was comprised of professors who teach in the fields of consumer law, commercial law, and/or bankruptcy. The group discussion centered around best practices for teaching and assessing our students in these courses. The group began by exploring innovations they have incorporated into their courses. One of the more interesting innovations introduced was by Professor Christopher D. Hampson of the University of Florida who breaks his class into groups and has them work through a moot Chapter 11 Plan Confirmation Hearing. The group also shared challenges with administering assessments and addressing accommodations under the ADA. A common technique to address this was to give more time to