Annual Rosenkranz Debate Series

Since 2008, the Annual Rosenkranz Debate has been the Saturday centerpiece of the National Lawyers Convention. It features an intellectually sharp one-on-one debate between two highly prominent legal theorists. The event is sponsored by Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz and the Rosenkranz Foundation.

2021 - John Allison and Ashley Keller
RESOLVED: Concentrated corporate power is a greater threat to individual freedom than government power
2019 - Philip A. Hamburger and Michael W. McConnell
RESOLVED: The Free Exercise Clause guarantees a constitutional right of religious exemption from general laws when such an exemption would not endanger public peace and good order.
2018 - John Harrison and Neal Katyal
RESOLVED: District courts do not have the authority to enter universal injunctions
2017 - Akhil Reed Amar and Randy Barnett
RESOLVED: Lochner v. New York: Still Crazy After All These Years
2016 - Deborah L. Rhode and Eugene Volokh
RESOLVED: Hostile Environment Law, On and Off Campus, Often Violates the First Amendment
2015 - Robert P. George and John O. McGinnis
RESOLVED: The Constitution is designed for a moral and religious people and it's wholly unsuited for the government of any other.
2014 - Michael Mukasey and Nadine Strossen
RESOLVED: Indiscriminate Collection of American Phone Records Violates the Fourth Amendment
2013 - Randy Barnett and J. Harvie Wilkinson
RESOLVED: Courts are too Deferential to the Legislature
2012 - Hadley Arkes and Alex Kozinski
RESOLVED: Natural Law Should Inform Constitutional Law
2011 - Paul Clement and Laurence Tribe
RESOLVED: Congress Acted Within Its Authority in Enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
2010 - Richard Epstein and William Eskridge, Jr.
A Debate on the Constitutionality of Proposition 8
2009 - Guido Calabresi and Frank Easterbrook
RESOLVED: The United States Constitution Requires Federal Courts to Interpret Statutes as Honest Agents of the Enacting Congress
2008 - Michael McConnell and Richard Posner
How Judges Think