News Center: Webcasts

This lecture describes and analyzes legislation currently before Congress that proposes to change the patent laws in a number of ways. Mr. Rosen explains the proposed changes and their likely implications for patent lawyers and businesses.

The First Annual Climate & Energy Law Symposium at the University of San Diego School of Law took place on Friday, February 2009.  The theme was “Federal Preemption or State Prerogative: California in the Face of National Climate Policy.”  The symposium was co-sponsored by the Energy Policy Initiatives Center and the San Diego Journal of Climate and Energy Law.  Scholarly articles written for the symposium will be published in the journal's inaugural issue, which is expected to be released in December 2009. If you are interested in receiving a copy, please contact Brigid Bennett.

INTRODUCTION:

• Welcome by Kevin Cole, Dean, University of San Diego, School of Law
• Additional opening remarks by Leslie K. McAllister, Thomas Del Monte and Scott Anders
• Keynote by Mary D. Nichols, Chairman, California Air Resources Board

PANEL ONE: A Presumption against Preemption in Climate Law?

• Moderator John Lormon, Esq., Partner, Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch, LLP
• Lorie Schmidt, Senior counsel, US House Committee on Energy and Commerce
• S. William Becker, Executive Director, National Association of Clean Air Agencies
• William W. Buzbee, Emory Law School
• Victor Flatt, University of Houston Law Center
• Q&A

PANEL TWO: Integrating State, Regional and Federal Regulatory Initiatives

• Moderator Kelly E. Richardson, Esq., Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
• Matt Bogoshian, Deputy Secretary for Law Enforcement and Counsel, California Environmental Protection Agency
• Alice Kaswan, University of San Francisco School of Law
• Lesley K. McAllister, University of San Diego School of Law
• John H. Minan, University of San Diego School of Law
• Q&A

PANEL THREE: Remaking Cooperative Federalism for Climate Law

• Moderator Robert Wilder, CEO & Founder of Wildershares, LLC
• Ann E. Carlson, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law
• Joseph F.C. DiMento, University of California, Irvine, School of Law
• Daniel A. Farber, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
• Clifford Rechtschaffen, Special Assistant Attorney General, California Department of Justice
• Q&A
• Concluding remarks by Richard J. Lazarus, Georgetown Law Center

The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights: What Have We Learned? Why Does it Matter?

More than 60 years have passed since Justice Hugo Black's epic dissent in Adamson v. California, and more than 20 since the publication of Michael Kent Curtis's influential book No State Shall Abridge. In those 20 years, scholars have continued to refine our understanding and debate the historical evidence.

Just this summer, the Supreme Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects a personal, rather than corporate, right to keep and bear arms. Old precedent says that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states through the Fourteenth. That precedent will be challenged very soon, and so our topic is as timely as it is, apparently, timeless.

The time has come to take stock of the incorporation question, to look for consensus where it can be found, and to attend closely to opposing arguments and evidence where disagreement persists.

FIRST PANEL:

• Introduction by Donald Dripps, University of San Diego
• Michael Kent Curtis, Judge Donald L. Smith Professor in Constitutional and Public Law, Wake Forest School of Law and one of the foremost constitutional historians in the United States
• Richard Aynes, John F. Seiberling Chair of Constitutional Law and Director, Constitutional Law Center, University of Akron School of Law
• Bryan Wildenthal, Professor, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
• George C. Thomas III, Professor, Rutgers Law School
• Q & A

SECOND PANEL:

• Lawrence Rosenthal, Professor, Chapman University School of Law
• Randy E. Barnett, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory, Georgetown University Law Center
• Lawrence B. Solum, Associate Dean for Faculty and Research and John E. Cribbet Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
• Michael B. Rappaport, Professor, University of San Diego School of Law
• Panel Discussion
• Q & A

THIRD PANEL:

• Kurt T. Lash, James P. Bradley Chair of Constitutional Law, Loyola Law School
• Steven D. Smith, Warren Distinguished Professor, University of San Diego School of Law
• Donald A. Dripps, Professor, University of San Diego School of Law
• Carolyn Ramsey, Professor, Colorado Law
• Yale Kamisar, Clarence Darrow Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan Law School and Professor, University of San Diego School of Law
• Q & A

Moderator:
Enrique Hernández, Esq. - Partner - Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch LLP

Speakers:
Karen Jacobs, Senior Manager - Ernst & Young LLP
Ginny Chung, Attorney Advisor - US Department of the Treasury, Office of International Tax Counsel
Lic. Alejandro Calderón Aguilera, Member - Capin, Calderón, Ramirez y Gutiérrez-Azpe
Oscar Castañeda, CPA - PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

The lecture explores the possibilities and limitations of what is called "originalism" in constitutional interpretation, the attempt to restrain interpretation by reference to the constitutional text and the "meanings" originally associated with that text. There is a large amount of literature on this subject, but rather little attention is paid to things that the text leaves unsaid. The lecture concentrates on three matters about which there are different sorts of "silences" in the text itself or in the interpretive stance of federal courts, the role of political parties, the meaning of a "republican form of government," and the role to be played by presidential electors. More Information

Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese visited the University of San Diego School of Law to discuss the role of the United States Constitution in relations to the Patriot Act and the Iraq War, including the role and outcome of the Commission on Iraq. Meese served as the 75th Attorney General of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988 and as Counselor to the President from January 1981 to February 1985. As Attorney General and as Counselor, he was a key member of President Ronald Reagan's Cabinet and the National Security Council. He directed the Department of Justice and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime. More Information

Richard Epstein, the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, opened the 2007 Bernard Siegan Memorial Conference on Economic Liberties, Property Rights, and the Original Meaning of the Constitution.

Epstein framed the conference of six scholastic papers discussing either economic liberties or property rights by referencing two important federal cases. He cited the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2005 Kelo v. City of New London decision, which refused to limit the government's eminent domain power with respect to allowing private property to be handed over to a private developer, and the ongoing Goldstein v. Pataki case, in which 13 residents and business owners stand in opposition to a massive $4 billion redevelopment project in Brooklyn, NY.

Richard Epstein is a director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School. Since 1972, he has taught, among other courses, torts, civil procedure, land use planning, and property, real estate and finance law. Epstein is the author of more than 10 books and numerous articles on a wide range of legal and interdisciplinary subjects.

Hosted by the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism at the University of San Diego School of Law, the Bernard Siegan Memorial Conference on Economic Liberties, Property Rights, and the Original Meaning of the Constitution brought together leading national legal scholars to discuss the intentions of the American founders with respect to economic liberties and private property rights. More Information

California Energy Commissioner John Geesman discusses the energy policy challenges that California will face in implementing Assembly Bill 32, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. John L. Geesman was originally appointed to the California Energy Commission in 2002 to fill an unexpired term. He was reappointed to a full five-year term by Governor Gray Davis on December 31, 2002, and confirmed by the Senate. Commissioner Geesman serves as presiding member of the Energy Commission’s renewables and facility sitting committees. He is an associate member on several other committees including the Integrated Energy Policy Report Committee. The event is presented by the USD School of Law’s Energy Policy Initiatives Center (EPIC), an academic and research center that studies how energy policy issues affect the San Diego County region and California, and the Environmental Law Society, which strives to expose students to all facets of environmental practice and sponsors discussions on current issues in environmental law.  
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Ken Alex discusses the California Attorney General’s efforts to address global warming through legal action, including the opportunities and limitations posed by the approach. Alex is a supervising deputy attorney general in the environment section of the California Attorney General’s Office. From 2000 to 2006, he also worked on the energy task force, investigating price and supply issues related to California’s energy crisis. The event is presented by the USD School of Law’s Energy Policy Initiatives Center (EPIC), an academic and research center that studies how energy policy issues affect the San Diego County region and California, and the Environmental Law Society, which strives to expose students to all facets of environmental practice and sponsors discussions on current issues in environmental law.  
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Honored by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Americans of the Twentieth Century, consumer advocate and presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, has devoted his life to giving ordinary people the tools they need to defend themselves against corporate negligence and government indifference. With a tireless, selfless dedication, he continues to expose and remedy the dangers that threaten a free and safe society. More Information

Professor Daniel B. Rodriguez, Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law, explores the underlying principles of state constitutionalism and, in doing so, wanders into the enduring debate over the nature and scope of American constitutionalism more generally. The differences between federal and state constitutional theory are real, not illusory. There are, Professor Rodriguez will argue, distinct governance objectives, mirrored by rather unusual intra-state rules and procedures which, when better understood, point toward a new theory of state constitutionalism and state constitutional law in the modern United States. More Information

The Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism welcomes John Yoo, professor at UC, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, architect of the Patriot Act and author of the so-called “torture memo,” for a debate about the War on Terror. Yoo goes head-to-head with USD School of Law Professor Mike Ramsey on issues of war power such as the authority to launch pre-emptive attacks abroad and conducting surveillance without a warrant. More Information