Schedule of Events

Sessions will be held in Room 119 with overflow in Room 120 unless otherwise specified. Except for the greenroom and Docket Deep Dives all panels will be recorded / live-streamed on zoom.

Friday, September 20th

2:30 PM-3:00 PM: Greenroom with Students

Brief Description: Available panelists will meet with registered W&M students to talk about their lives in the law and to give advice they wish they had been given when in law school.

4:00 PM: Welcome (Professor Allison Orr Larsen)

4:05- 5:30PM: Moot Court - United States v. Skrmetti

Advocates: Jessica Ellsworth and Hashim Mooppan
Moot Court Justices: Joan Biskupic (Chief), Jess Bravin, Fred Smith, Michelle Kallen, Jonathan Ellis, Judge Rosenbaum, Judge Harris, Judge Sullivan, Judge Stras.

Brief Description: In 2023, Tennessee enacted a law that forbids medical treatments for a minor to treat “distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.” At issue in this case are puberty blockers and hormone treatments. The law allows the use of hormone treatments for other patients under 18 (not for the use of gender transition or gender dysphoria) and it permits hormone therapy for patients who were already receiving it prior to the law’s enactment. Three transgender teenagers along with their parents and a doctor brought a lawsuit challenging the law. The three minors have received puberty blockers and hormone therapy which seek to produce physiological changes to conform physical appearance with their gender identity; they claim Tennessee’s law is an unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The United States has joined the case under a federal law that allows the government to intervene in private cases alleging violations of equal protection rights that are of general public importance.

*As in the past, the audience is reminded that the moot court is an academic exercise only and no questions or positions taken by either the moot court justices or advocates should be attributed to them personally.

5:30– 6:30 PM: The ABCs of ACB: Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Emerging Position on the Supreme Court

Moderator: Adam Liptak
Panelists: Melissa Murray, Irv Gornstein, Roman Martinez, Sarah Harris

Brief Description: In the days following the conclusion of the 2023 Term, journalists quickly observed that Justice Barrett was “charting her own path,” and “the one to watch.” Judging by several separate opinions in high-profile cases, some commentators called her “a mediator of sorts” while others emphasized that she was “a conservative justice through and through.” This panel will discuss what (if anything) has changed for Justice Barrett’s positions and will forecast what her emerging voice means for the Court’s direction in the future.

Saturday, September 21st

9:00-10:00 AM: Admin Law After the Storm: The Fallout from Loper Bright and more.

Moderator: Aaron Bruhl
Panelists: Roman Martinez, Beth Brinkmann,Pratik Shah, Don Verrilli

Brief Description: In addition to overruling Chevron, the Court made several significant changes to administrative law last Term including in cases about the timing of lawsuits under the APA and the availability of in-house agency adjudication. This panel discusses what will happen next. Most imminently there are several questions of statutory interpretation coming from agencies on the Court’s docket already. Major cases about the structure of administrative agencies are making their way through the lower courts. Will the Court have more big moves in store for the administrative state this term, and relatedly what is most likely to take place in the lower courts in the wake of these major decisions?

10:00-11:00 AM: Emerging Technologies, Fraud, and the First Amendment

Moderator: Martina Stewart
Panelists: Meaghan VerGow, Pam Karlan, Bertrall Ross & Erwin Chemerinsky (on zoom)

Brief Description: Several cases on the Court’s docket pertain to what one might call emerging technologies: cryptocurrency, social media, age restrictions on website content, data-mining and more. This panel will discuss how the Court will address these issues, and what if any patterns can be drawn from cases that press the Court to understand regulations on changing technologies.

Break

11:15 AM - 12:15 PM: How to Manage Legal Transition: The Judges Panel

Moderator: Professor Neal Devins
Panelists: Judge Pam Harris (4th Circuit), Judge Robin Rosenbaum (11th Circuit), Judge Richard Sullivan (2nd Circuit), Judge David Stras (8th Circuit)

Brief Description: Judges on the U.S. Courts of Appeals will answer questions about managing legal change on their dockets. When the Supreme Court overrules a precedent or hands down a new test (which seems to be happening frequently), what are the most direct and practical consequences in the courts below? What would make managing those transitions easier?

12:15-1:00 PM: Lunch Break

1:00-2:00 PM: Docket Deep Dives (3 choices in 3 different rooms):

(A) Election Law: Abbie VanSickle (moderator), Pam Karlan, Bertrall Ross, Rebecca Green

(B) Business Law / Employment Law: Jess Bravin (moderator), Greg Stohr, Carter Philips, Pratik Shah

(C) Criminal Law: Ann Marimow (moderator), Easha Anand, Kelsi Corkran, David Strauss

2:00-3:00 PM: Deciding Not to Decide: Standing Doctrine, “DIG”s, & the Shrinking Docket

Moderator: Joan Biskupic
Panelists: Carter Philips, Beth Brinkmann, Don Verrilli, David Strauss

Brief Description: Several of last Term’s high-profile decisions were not decided on the merits either because the case was dismissed for lack of standing or dismissed as improvidently granted. This panel will discuss potential reasons for that pattern and predict whether it will continue into the coming Term. Relatedly, the panelists will speculate on the reasons why the Supreme Court is deciding fewer cases than ever before and will contemplate what the consequences of a shrinking docket may be (for both the merits docket and the shadow docket).