Section Highlights

Section Summary – Law Faculty Physical Well-Being

This discussion group, moderated by Professor Joan MacLeod Heminway, focused on maintaining physical well-being among law faculty. The session brought together discussants from various law schools to explore challenges and strategies for improving physical wellness in academic legal careers. The group explored whether law faculty should develop a wellness manifesto, drawing on research from books like “Spark” by John Ratey (highlighting cognitive benefits of exercise) and “The Runner’s Brain” by Jeff Brown. Participants examined how crisis situations can serve as motivation for wellness changes and discussed the critical role of sleep and physical rest. Discussants shared numerous approaches for maintaining physical well-being: Self-assessment techniques and scheduled physical activities (like calendared walking) Accountability systems and conscious avoidance of multitasking Setting clear

Section Summary – Experience Since the Roberts Court’s Revolution in Administrative Law

Since 2021, the Supreme Court has issued several decisions with potentially transformative effects for administrative law. But did that potential transformation actually occur? That was the question addressed by the panel titled Experience Since the Roberts Court’s Revolution in Administrative Law. The panel was organized by Professor Bill Funk and involved presentations by four administrative law scholars on the impacts of four of the Court’s recent decisions. Professor Funk began by revisiting the Court’s holding in West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697 (2022). The case involved a dispute over the EPA’s statutory authority to regulate coal-fired power plants. In holding that the agency lacked statutory authority to issue its regulation, the Court relied on the major questions doctrine, a

Section Summary – Distance Education Workshop

This workshop session explored the basics of creating and teaching an online course. The session began by describing the various types of online modalities – asynchronous, hybrid, synchronous, etc. – and proceeded from there into a discussion of how to choose a modality for your particular course. For JD courses, the majority of panelists appear to use an online-hybrid/semi-synchronous modality but MLS programs trended toward asynchronous modality. There was a general disdain for Flex modalities (i.e. letting students Zoom into a live class). Regardless of the type of course, the consensus was that 25 students per course was the ideal with a hard cap at 30. The conversation then turned to how to create an online course – keying lessons

Section Summary – Supreme Court Update

This annual panel discussed eleven cases from October Term 2024, as well as larger issues involving the Court, before a mostly full Cumberland A. Eric Segall (Georgia State) began the discussion by describing the current Court as a sub-committee further Republican values or values the Justices share. While everyone agrees the Court has always been ideological, this Court is uniquely partisan. All other discussions—about doctrine, text, history—is academic cover. Akram Faizer (Lincoln) discussed two cases. As to Mahmoud v. Taylor (public schools must allow students to opt-out of LGTBTQ+-related issues that contradict religious beliefs), Akram criticized the Court’s comparison between Jehovah’s Witnesses opting out of the flag salute and Amish parents pulling their children out of school and the plaintiffs’

Section Summary – Administrative Law

Administrative law is in a state of flux, but is it in a state of crisis? That was the topic of Is Administrative Law in Crisis?, a discussion group on the opening day of the 2025 SEALS annual meeting. The group consisted of more than fifteen administrative law scholars, including several casebook authors. The session was broken into two sections. The first focused on recent events’ substantive ramifications for administrative law. Led by organizer Linda Jellum, the group began by discussing how some of the Trump Administration’s conduct with respect to universities, law firms, and immigrants implicated the separation of powers, in particular the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches. Conversation focused on the impact of the