Fall Conference to Feature Top Experts in Property Rights

The Law School will host leading scholars, lawyers, and judges for the Seventh Annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 in Williamsburg, VA. The Property Rights Project of William & Mary Law School is sponsoring the conference. Registration is $50 and includes admission to all sessions; there is no fee for law students who wish to attend.

"This year's Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference will bring together some of the nation's top academics and attorneys to exchange ideas about cutting edge issues affecting property rights" said Lynda Butler, conference director and Chancellor Professor of Law. "We are very excited to be hosting these experts and to be honoring Professor Carol Rose for her many thought-provoking contributions to property rights scholarship. In addition to her numerous publications, Professor Rose has educated hundreds of law students about the importance of property rights."

Professor Rose will receive the 2010 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize at a dinner on Sept. 30. She is the Ashby Lohse Chair in Water and Natural Resources at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. Prior to joining the faculty at Arizona, Professor Rose was the Gordon Bradford Tweedy Professor of Law and Organization at Yale University Law School. She has authored numerous articles and several books, including Perspectives on Property Law (2d ed. 1995) (3d ed. 2002) (co-author, with Bruce Ackerman & Robert Ellickson) and Property and Persuasion: Essays on the History, Theory, and Rhetoric of Ownership (1994).

Conference sessions will address Rose's scholarship and discuss the meaning of just compensation when property is taken by the government for public use, the relationship between public and private property rights, and the issue of property rights in common resources. These sessions will raise important questions about how the nation can deal with serious environmental and societal problems in a world of increasingly limited resources while still protecting the fundamental role that property plays in protecting individual liberty.  

In addition to Rose, the following speakers and panelists will participate in this year's conference: James S. Burling of the Pacific Legal Foundation; John D. Echeverria of Vermont Law School; Robert C. Ellickson of Yale Law School; James W. Ely, Jr., of Vanderbilt Law School; Leslie A. Fields of Faegre & Benson LLP; Michael A. Heller of Columbia Law School; Thomas W. Merrill of Columbia Law School; Jedediah Purdy of Duke Law School; Mark Sagoff of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland; Daniel J. Sharfstein of Vanderbilt Law School; Henry E. Smith of Harvard Law School; Laura S. Underkuffler of Cornell Law School; Joseph T. Waldo of Waldo & Lyle, PC; and the Honorable Robert T. Woodbridge, Jr., of Fairfax Circuit Court (Retired) and the George Mason Law School. 

Both the conference and the prize are named in recognition of Toby Prince Brigham and Gideon Kanner for their ongoing private property rights work, their efforts to advance the constitutional protection of property, and their accomplishments in preserving the important role that private property plays in protecting individual and civil rights.

Professor Rose joins an illustrious list of prior Brigham-Kanner Prize recipients that includes Professor Frank I. Michelman of Harvard Law School (2004), Professor Richard A. Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School (2005), Professor James W. Ely, Jr., of Vanderbilt Law School (2006), Professor Margaret Jane Radin of the University of Michigan Law School (2007), Professor Robert C. Ellickson of Yale Law School (2008), and Professor Richard E. Pipes of Harvard University (2009).

A $50 registration fee per person includes admission to all panels, and breakfast and lunch on Friday. Continuing Legal Education credit is pending. There is an additional fee of $100 per person to attend Thursday evening's reception and dinner. The registration fee is waived for law students with advance registration. 

Updated conference and registration information is available on the Property Rights Project website or by calling (757)221-3796.