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TOPIC NOTES: Professor Barnett will discuss the two cases that raise the question of whether the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003 is constitutional. Both lower courts struck down the federal statute on its face. These cases are especially significant because in 2000 the Court in Stenberg v. Carhart struck down a state statute that prohibited what the state law defined as “partial birth abortion” by a five to four vote, and Justice O’Connor supplied the fifth vote for the majority. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito have since joined the Court.
Professor Forman will comment on the two cases that concern the constitutionality of public schools using race as a factor in assigning students to specific public schools. Both lower federal courts of appeals upheld the school district assignment policies. These cases provide the Roberts Court with its first opportunity to consider the use of race in public education in general and, particularly, to consider the applicability of the Court’s recent decisions in Gruter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, both of which were sharply divided, outside the context of higher education and admissions.
Professor Heinzerling will discuss the two environmental law cases scheduled for argument this fall. Both cases raise questions of statutory interpretation under the federal Clean Air Act and, significantly, the Court granted review in both cases over the opposition of the federal government. Indeed, the Court’s grant in Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy, represents the first time that the Court has granted certiorari in response to an exclusive request of an environmental group in 35 years. It is, however, the Massachusetts v. EPA case that is likely to garner the greatest public attention, injecting the Court into the controversy concerning the Bush administration’s policies regarding global climate change, particularly its decision not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
Professor Thomas will focus on the two patent cases now before the Court. These cases represent the latest in a series of patent law cases that the Court has granted in recent years, defying the Court’s longstanding tradition of steering away from patent law. Both cases are potentially significant, but it is KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., that is generating the most attention. It concerns one of the most fundamental issues of patent law, the meaning of “obviousness” in determining whether a claimed invention is patentable, and the Court’s ruling could accordingly have significant implications for patents.
Professor Gottesman will discuss the two tort law cases that will be argued this October and November. Both cases arise out of efforts by advocates of tort reform to persuade the Justices to embrace statutory and constitutional limits on tort liability and remedies. Philip Morris USA v. Williams concerns the applicability of constitutional limits on the award of punitive damages imposed on tobacco companies. Norfolk Southern Railway v. Sorrell is the latest in a series of cases that the Court has granted at the request of railroads to limit their tort liability under the Federal Employer Liability Act. |
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ON PANELISTS: Professor Bloch joined the faculty in 1982. She teaches Constitutional Law I and II, Federal Courts, Communications Law, and a seminar on the Supreme Court. Bloch 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,” (West Publishing Company, 1994). She has given lectures and interviews on a variety of topics, including impeachment, presidential immunity, historical overviews of the Supreme Court, the role of the Constitution in this country and its relevance for emerging democracies. Before joining the Law Center, Professor Bloch served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Judge Spottswood Robinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She also practiced law at Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering for about four years. Bloch graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School. Professor Lazarus teaches environmental law, natural resources law, Supreme Court advocacy, and torts. He also serves as the faculty director of the Supreme Court Institute and has been a visiting professor of law at both Harvard and Columbia Law Schools. He previously worked for the U.S. Justice Department, in both the Environmental and Natural Resources Division and the Solicitor General's Office, where he was Assistant to the Solicitor General. Lazarus has represented the United States, state and local governments, and public interest groups in the U.S. Supreme Court in approximately 37 cases. His legal scholarship is primarily in the area of environmental and natural resources law and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has most recently published law review articles on environmental legal history, the Supreme Court, Congress, environmental law, Justice Scalia and the Fifth Amendment Just Compensation Clause, and environmental justice. Professor Barnett joined the Georgetown Law faculty this fall as the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory after serving as a visiting professor. Most recently, he was the Austin B. Fletcher Professor at the Boston University School of Law, where he taught constitutional law, contracts and cyber law, as well as torts, criminal law, evidence, agency and partnership and jurisprudence. Barnett graduated from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School and later served as a visiting professor at each of his alma maters. He was a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in Chicago, and in 2004, argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzales v. Raich in the U.S. Supreme Court. Barnett has produced more than 80 articles and reviews, as well as seven books, including “Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty” (Princeton, 2004), “Contract Cases and Doctrine” (Aspen, 3rd ed. 2003), and "The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law” (Oxford, 1998). He teaches constitutional law. Professor Forman is a graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School. After law school, he served as a judicial clerk for both U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Judge William Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Forman worked for six years with the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., where he represented juveniles and adults in serious felony cases. In 1999, he was promoted to training director for new attorneys at the agency. Forman's interest in educational programs for at-risk and court-involved youth led him to establish, along with a colleague, the Maya Angelou Public Charter School in 1997. The school is recognized as one of the most successful programs of its kind in the country, combining rigorous education, job training, counseling, mental health services, life skills, and dormitory living for school dropouts and youth who have previously been incarcerated. Forman teaches and writes in the areas of criminal procedure and education law. Professor Heinzerling graduated from the University of Chicago Law School, where she served as editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. After law school, she clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She was a Skadden Fellow at Business & Professional People for the Public Interest in Chicago, and for three years practiced environmental law in the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale Law Schools. Her scholarship in environmental law has been published in the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, and Georgetown Law Journal. With economist Frank Ackerman, she is the author of "Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing" (The New Press, 2004). In 2003, she received Georgetown Law’s faculty teaching award. Professor Thomas was Associate Professor of Law at the George Washington University before joining Georgetown Law in 2002. He served on the visiting faculties at Cornell Law School and the University of Tokyo, and was the Congressional Research Service Visiting Scholar in Economic Growth and Entrepreneurship. Thomas served as law clerk to Chief Judge Helen W. Nies of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and Comparative Patent, Copyright and Unfair Competition Law in Munich, Germany; and research scholar at the Institute of Intellectual Property in Tokyo, Japan. He was previously associated with the law firm of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, L.L.P., in Washington, D.C. Thomas has published numerous articles and five books on the subject of intellectual property law.
Professor Gottesman served as an adjunct professor at the Law Center from 1978-88, and joined the faculty as a full-time professor in 1989. Specializing in the fields of labor law, constitutional law, and civil rights, Gottesman practiced with the Washington, D.C., firm of Bredhoff and Kaiser from 1961-88, and has argued numerous cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. From 1977-81, he served, by appointment of President Carter, on the Judicial Nominating Commission for the District of Columbia, reviewing hundreds of candidates for vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Gottesman is a member of the board of trustees of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and a member of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and the Law Committee of the American Association of University Professors. |
