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 prominent legal theorists. This year, the Tenth Annual Rosenkranz Debate is titled RESOLVED: Lochner v. New York: Still Crazy After All These Years.
Debaters
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for then Judge (now Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. His work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been favorably cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 30 cases—tops in his generation. He has regularly testified before Congress at the invitation of both parties; and in various comprehensive surveys of judicial citations and/or scholarly citations, he invariably ranks among America's five most-cited legal scholars under age sixty.
Randy E. Barnett is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and is Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, he tried many felony cases as a prosecutor in the Cook County States' Attorney's Office in Chicago. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies, Professor Barnett has been a visiting professor at Penn, Northwestern and Harvard Law School. Professor Barnett's publications include twelve books, more than one hundred articles and reviews, as well as numerous op-eds. In 2004, he argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzalez v. Raich before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2012, he was one of the lawyers representing the National Federation of Independent Business in its constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act.
Moderator
Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz teaches constitutional law and federal jurisdiction, and he writes articles for the Harvard Law Review and the Stanford Law Review. Rosenkranz has served and advised the federal government in a variety of capacities. He clerked for Judge Frank H. Easterbrook on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as an Attorney-Advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. He often testifies before Congress as a constitutional expert. He has also filed briefs and presented oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court. Rosenkranz is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He is a founding member of Heterodox Academy and a member of its Executive Committee. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Federalist Society and as the faculty advisor to the Georgetown chapter.
Join the debate on Saturday, November 18 from 12:30 – 2:30 PM in the Grand Ballroom of The Mayflower Hotel to witness exemplary discourse as the National Lawyers Convention pursues its theme of Administrative Agencies and the Regulatory State.
Click here to consult the convention schedule. To watch the convention live stream, visit this page beginning November 16.
To learn more about Lochner v. New York, click here.