Georgetown Law Supreme Court Institute Annual Press Briefing:
Anticipating the Supreme Court’s October Term 2007

Monday, September 24, 2007
9:00 – 11:00 a.m. (Continental breakfast served at 8:30 a.m.)

Georgetown University Law Center
Gewirz Student Center, 12th Floor
120 F Street, NW
Washington, D.C.  20001

Professor Susan Low Bloch, Georgetown University Law Center

GEORGETOWN LAW
PANELISTS & TOPICS:

TOPIC NOTES:                   

Professor Bloch will moderate the panel discussion and offer a brief overview of October Term 2006, the first full term with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito on the Court.

Professor Katyal will discuss two of the most significant cases before the Court this term, Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. U.S., both raising a series of questions concerning the meaning, and ultimately, the constitutionality of the Military Commission Act of 2006. In an extraordinary action immediately before adjourning for the summer, the Court granted review in both cases after first denying it - the first time that the Court had granted rehearing in several decades. The cases are the latest in a series that the Court has heard in recent years raising constitutional challenges to the treatment of detainees. Katyal will also briefly discuss Medellin v. Texas, concerning the validity of the President’s determination that states must comply with certain treaty obligations of the United States.

Professor Langevoort will discuss two cases dealing with securities and commodities fraud. The main focus will be on Stoneridge Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta, which deals with the liability in private securities litigation under Rule 10b-5 (the basic antifraud provision of the federal securities laws) for secondary actors who do not themselves provide misinformation directly to investors. The Court ruled in 1994 that merely aiding or abetting a fraud is insufficient to create liability under Rule 10b-5; the question here is whether the conduct of two companies - who allegedly entered into sham transactions with Charter Communications that enabled Charter to misreport its financial condition - was itself fraudulent, rather than just a form of aiding and abetting. If so, then injured investors will be able to sue them. This is a very high visibility case; the issue relates to the sort of conduct allegedly engaged in by Wall Street investment banks and others in a number of financial fraud cases, including the Enron litigation. Langevoort will also briefly discuss Klein & Co. v. Board of Trade, which deals with whether commodities brokerage firms have a right to sue commodities exchanges under the Commodity Exchange Act based on their failure to enforce their own rules, or whether only customers trading on those exchanges have such a right.

Professor Barnett will discuss District of Columbia v. Parker, which concerns the constitutionality of the D.C. gun law under the Second Amendment. Petition for certiorari has been filed by the District of Columbia and is currently pending. This much-discussed case presents the issue of whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right and, if so, whether the District's prohibition on the possession of a handgun in the home violates such a right. He will also touch briefly upon two criminal cases: Snyder v. Louisiana, which concerns the claim that the prosecutor improperly used his peremptory challenges to obtain an all-white jury and, at trial, improperly invoked the O.J. Simpson case to induce the all-white jury to award the death penalty; and Kimbrough v. U.S., which concerns how the disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses may properly affect sentencing.

Professor Vladeck will survey a series of cases pending before the Court that raise a variety of significant legal issues relating to liability of business employers for retirement benefits and employment discrimination, including Larue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Assoc., Inc., Sprint/United Management Co. v. Mendelsohn and Federal Express Corp. v. Holowecki. Vladeck will also discuss Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., the latest in a series of preemption cases before the Court in recent years raising an industry claim that a federal regulatory law preempts an action for damages under state law. In Riegel, business defendants contend that state law is preempted by the Medical Device Amendments to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Because petitioner’s counsel recently informed the Court that his client died three years ago, Vladeck will consider the question of whether the case is now moot. Vladeck will also answer questions relating to Board of Education v. City of New York, concerning the right of tuition reimbursement for special education of children under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Professor Lazarus will briefly discuss the results of a recently completed study that documents the rise of a modern private sector Supreme Court Bar and its impact on the Court. His research documents the extent of the modern Bar’s increasing domination of the Court’s docket, arguments and rulings even as the Court’s docket shrinks. Lazarus also considers the extent to which business interests who serve as the Bar’s primary clients are enjoying heightened success before the Court as a result.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ON PANELISTS:

Professor Bloch teaches constitutional law, federal courts, communications law and a seminar on the Supreme Court. She is the author of numerous articles in the areas of constitutional and administrative law and is the co-author of "Supreme Court Politics: The Institution and Its Procedures." Before joining Georgetown Law, she served as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall. In addition to teaching, Bloch is a member of the American Law Institute, a participant on the Twentieth Century Fund Project on the Judiciary and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. In the District, she is a member of the District of Columbia Judicial Evaluation Committee, has been a Commissioner on the Judicial Nominating Commission for the District of Columbia Courts and has worked with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in numerous capacities.

Professor Katyal recently won Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in the Supreme Court, a case that challenged the policy of military trials at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba. The Court ruled that President Bush's tribunals violated the constitutional separation of powers, domestic military law and international law. As former Solicitor General and Duke Law Professor Walter Dellinger put it, "Hamdan is simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever." An expert in matters of constitutional law, particularly the role of the President and Congress in time of war and theories of constitutional interpretation, Katyal has embraced his theoretical work as the platform for practical consequences in the federal courts. Katyal previously served as National Security Adviser in the U.S. Justice Department and as a law clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer.

Professor Langevoort is the Thomas Aquinas Reynolds Professor at Georgetown Law. Following graduation from Harvard Law School, Langevoort went into private practice with the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C., before serving as Special Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Langevoort has written a treatise on insider trading, co-authored a casebook on securities regulation and produced numerous law review articles on topics such as insider trading, the impact of technology on securities regulation, investor behavior and the intersection between cognitive psychology and lawyers' professional responsibilities. He has served on the Legal Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange, the Legal Advisory Board of the National Association of Securities Dealers, the SEC's Advisory Committee on Market Information (chairing its subcommittee on alternative models for data consolidation) and the Nominating Committee of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.

Professor Barnett is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory at Georgetown Law, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts. 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. In November 2004, he argued the medical cannabis case of Gonzales v. Raich in the Supreme Court. He also coauthored an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the case of Lawrence v. Texas. Barnett has published more than eighty articles and reviews, as well as seven books, including "Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty" (Princeton, 2004). He is currently finishing a new casebook on constitutional law.

Professor Vladeck, a highly acclaimed Supreme Court advocate and legal scholar, joined the Georgetown Law faculty after more than twenty years of legal practice at the Public Citizen Litigation Group, a nationally prominent public interest law firm, where he served as director of Public Citizen’s Supreme Court litigation program. He has represented parties in numerous cases before the Court. At Georgetown Law, he co-directs the Institute for Public Representation, a clinic law program, and serves as director of the Center on Health Regulation and Governance of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. In addition to his clinic teaching, Vladeck teaches federal courts, civil procedure and government processes.

Professor Lazarus serves as faculty director of Georgetown Law’s Supreme Court Institute, which provided moot courts to counsel in over ninety percent of the cases before the Court last term. He previously served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. Both his teaching and scholarship relate to the work of the Court, especially Supreme Court advocacy, and he has frequently served as counsel to parties with cases before the Court. This past summer, he co-taught a course in Vienna with the Chief Justice on Supreme Court history, with a particular focus on the changing role and influence of the Chief Justice and Supreme Court advocates over time. His most recent article on the impact of Supreme Court advocacy on the Court, Advocacy Matters: Transforming the Court by Transforming the Bar, will be published by the Georgetown Law Journal later this academic year.

About Georgetown University Law Center

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It has the largest faculty in the nation and is preeminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of practical ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body representing more than 60 countries.

Twenty-three members of the Georgetown Law full-time faculty have served as U.S. Supreme Court law clerks.