In their first full term together on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito voted alike more than any other pair of Justices. According to U.S. Law Week, the pair disagreed in only 6% of the cases decided in the 2006 Term; by my count, the two reached different conclusions only five times. This overwhelming level of agreement between the two new Justices makes their disagreement in last term’s
federalism cases all the more striking....

This is the first issue following our twenty-fifth anniversary. Audio and video from the 25th National Lawyers Convention is online. In addition, we are pleased to announce that the transcripts of nearly all of the panel debates will be published in various law reviews this coming year, including The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Texas Review of Law and Policy, The William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, The New York Journal of Law and Liberty, Ave Maria Law Review, Hofstra Law Review, Regent University Law Review, The Southern New England Roundtable Symposium Law Journal, The SMU Technology Law Review, The University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review, and The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. Publication details appear on the individual webpage for each panel in our new Multimedia Archive. Consequently, we will not be publishing the transcripts as an issue of Engage this year; our next issue will be in June.

The Federalist Society's Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group presented this panel discussion at the 2007 Annual National Lawyers Convention on November 15, 2007. The panelists included Dean John C. Eastman of Chapman University School of Law, Prof. Philip A. Hamburger of Columbia University School of Law, Prof. Marci A. Hamilton of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and Hon. William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit as the moderator.

In this first fourth edition of Engage, members and others review the Supreme Court’s last term and recent developments in the federal and state courts, as well as news in the public policy realm. Harry J.F. Korrell, who successfully represented the plaintiffs in the Seattle schools case, provides a recounting of the issues at stake in the headline-making decision. Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity and Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in a point-counterpoint, debate the fate of affirmative action hiring practices in the new Court era. Steve Erickson of Yale reviews the Court’s mental health rulings. Professors Josh Wright and Robert Miller consider the Court’s antitrust rulings in light of the larger trend and influence of Chicago School economics. Washington Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey Hymans considers the issues at stake in a recent ban on violent video games. Professor F. Scott Kieff argues that intellectual property rights can help those interested in conservation and world health. And former Assistant Attorney General Jack Park recounts his experience with class actions, and the problem of attorneys’ fees. Also: reviews of Clint Bolick’s The Case for an Activist Judiciary, Louis Seidman’s Silence and Freedom, Michael Ramsey’s The Constitution’s Text in Foreign Affairs, Stuart Taylor’s Until Proven Innocent, and The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration. [Click here to read]