Peter Radan is Honorary Professor of Law at Macquarie University. This interview is based on his new book, Creating a More Perfect Slaveholders’ Union: Slavery, the Constitution, and Secession in Antebellum America (University Press of Kansas, 2023). JF: What led you to write...
His admission came 166 years after he first applied to the bar and was denied. Here is Sydney Trent at The Washington Post: Edward Garrison Draper was more prepared to be a lawyer than most White attorneys in the mid-19th...
Scott Douglas Gerber is Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University and Associated Scholar at Brown University’s Political Theory Project. This interview is based on his new book, Law and Religion in Colonial America: The Dissenting Colonies (Cambridge University Press,...
Giuliana Perrone is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This interview is based on her new book, Nothing More than Freedom: The Failure of Abolition in American Law (Cambridge University Press, 2023). JF: What led...
Samantha Barbas is Professor of Legal History and Director of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the University at Buffalo School of Law. This interview is based on her new book, Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom...
Mark Dillon is Associate Justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, Second Judicial Department. This interview is based on his book, The First Chief Justice: John Jay and the Struggle of a New Nation (State...
Here is Joshua Zeitz at Politico: It’s not every day that the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice conspires to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Yet that’s where we are. The stunning revelation of text messages...
Kristin A. Olbertson is Associate Professor of History and Pre-Law Program Coordinator at Alma College. This interview is based on her new book, The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776 (Cambridge University Press, 2022). JF: What...
Gerard Magliocca is Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law at Indiana University McKinney School of Law. This interview is based on his new book, Washington’s Heir: The Life of Justice Bushrod Washington (Oxford University Press, 2022). JF: What led you to...
William Novak is Charles F. and Edith J. Clyne Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. This interview is based on his new book, New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State (Harvard University Press, 2022)....
Steven K. Green is Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at Willamette University. This interview is based on his new book, Separating Church and State: A History (Cornell University Press,...
Tomiko Brown-Nagin asks this question in a recent piece at Politico. Here is a taste: Constance Baker Motley — the first African American woman appointed to the federal bench — was touted for the Supreme Court as early as the...
Now it is time for the appropriate courts to go after Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis. Here is The New York Times: A New York appellate court suspended Rudolph W. Giuliani’s law license on Thursday after a disciplinary panel found...
Here is Peter Canellos at The New York Times. His forthcoming book is titled The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, American Judicial Hero. A taste: The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, announced 125 years ago Tuesday,...
Check out Scotus Blog’s March Madness tournament: Make your picks here. I’m taking John Marshall all the way....
Lisa Tucker is Associate Professor of Law at Drexel University. This interview is based on her new book, Hamilton and the Law: Reading Today’s Most Contentious Legal Issues through the Hit Musical (Cornell University Press, 2020). JF: What led you...
Earlier today, I published two posts on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on LGBTQ rights. The first post addressed the politics of the decision and what it means for white evangelical support for Donald Trump. The second post dealt with the...
Alan Dershowitz‘s case against the removal of Donald Trump may have won over many GOP Senators during the president’s impeachment trial, but it has failed to convince law professors, legal scholars, and historians. At one point during the trial, Dershowtiz...
Watch Chief Justice John Roberts here. (For some reason You Tube will not let me access its embedding codes today). Pettifogging: “worrying too much about details that are minor or not important.” It was often used a derogatory statement about...
Noah Feldman of Harvard Law School is one of the legal scholars who testified before the House Judiciary Committee. He was one of the three (of four) lawyers who concluded that Trump’s phone call to Ukraine and his obstruction of...
