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In his first decade on the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts has written for the Court in some of most consequential cases in recent history and dissented in others. He has been both applauded and criticized by both ends of the political spectrum. He also has begun to craft his legacy as Chief Justice and leader not only of the Supreme Court but of the entire federal judiciary. This panel presents a range of views on the first ten years of the Roberts Court. The panelists bring a variety of perspectives: practitioner, journalist, academic, and Senate staff at the time of his confirmation. They discussed the substance of the Roberts Court's opinions, what legacy the Chief Justice is crafting, whether he is succeeding in shaping the Court into a "Roberts Court," and whether his jurisprudence is consistent with what was expected at the time he was appointed.
Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown Law
Biography
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971, Professor Seidman served as a law clerk for J. Skelly Wright of the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He then was a staff attorney with the D.C. Public Defender Service until joining the Law Center faculty in 1976. He teaches a variety of courses in the fields of constitutional and criminal law. He is co-author of a constitutional law casebook and the author of many articles concerning criminal justice and constitutional law. His most recent books are Silence and Freedom (Stanford 2007), Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review (Yale 2001) and Equal Protection of the Laws (Foundation 2002).
