About the Event

This year the ABA's Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases' annual Supreme Court program looks back at the Roberts Court's first term and ahead to the significance the recent changes on the bench will have for the future. Issues to be discussed include: What is the meaning of the O'Connor and Rehnquist legacies? Of the Alito and Roberts confirmations? Of the new focus on Justice Kennedy?"

This is a free CLE program.

Back to top

Moderator

Dahlia Lithwick

Dahlia Lithwick, 37, a senior editor and legal correspondent for Slate, writes the column "Supreme Court Dispatches" and has covered the Microsoft trial and other legal issues. Before joining Slate, she worked for a family law firm in Reno, Nevada, and clerked for Procter Hug, chief justice of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1996. Her work has appeared in the New Republic, Commentary, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Elle and on CNN.com. She is a weekly legal commentator for the NPR show, Day to Day.

She is co-author of Me v. Everybody: Absurd Contracts for an Absurd World (Workman Publishing, 2003), a legal humor book, and I Will Sing Life: Voices from the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp (Little, Brown & Co., 1992), a book about seven children from Paul Newman's camp who have life-threatening illnesses.

Ms. Lithwick was awarded the Online News Association's award for online commentary in 2001. She received a B.A degree in English from Yale University in 1990 and a J.D degree from Stanford Law School in 1996.

Back to top

Confirmed Panelists

Thomas C. Goldstein

Thomas C. Goldstein heads Akin Gump's Supreme Court practice. He has argued 16 cases before the Supreme Court. Most recently, he successfully argued Georgia v. Randolph, an important search and seizure case. He also argued the first case of this Term, Tum v. Barber Foods, which he won unanimously. Last Term he successfully argued Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Lines (involving the application of federal disability law to cruise ships) and Smith v. City of Jackson (involving disparate impact age discrimination claims). He has taken a leading role in numerous other cases, including serving as second chair on behalf of Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore.

In addition to practicing law, Mr. Goldstein teaches Supreme Court litigation at both Stanford Law School and Harvard Law School. He is principally responsible for SCOTUSblog, which is devoted to coverage of the Court, and he is a contributor to the ABA's Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases. Before entering private practice he clerked for the Honorable Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Douglas Kmiec

Professor Douglas W. Kmiec holds the endowed chair in constitutional law at Pepperdine Law School. He previously served several years as dean and St. Thomas More Professor of Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and for nearly two decades, on the law faculty at the University of Notre Dame. Beyond the university setting, Kmiec served Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush during 1985-89 as constitutional legal counsel (Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice).

Professor Kmiec writes a syndicated column for the Catholic News Service, and for several years wrote a regular column in the Chicago Tribune. He is a Contributing Editor to the ABA's Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases in the area of Constitutional Law and a frequent contributor to the pages of the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and other periodicals. He is the author of Cease-Fire on the Family (Crisis Books/Notre Dame 1995) and The Attorney General's Lawyer (Praeger 1992), and the co-author of three books on the Constitution.

Maureen E. Mahoney

Maureen Mahoney is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Latham & Watkins, and leads the firm's appellate and constitutional practice. Prior to entering private practice, Ms. Mahoney served as a law clerk to then Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist and Seventh Circuit Judge Robert Sprecher.

Ms. Mahoney has argued 14 cases in the Supreme Court. She represented the University of Michigan when she won the landmark case upholding the constitutionality of admissions programs that consider race as one of many factors in order to attain the educational benefits of a diverse student body. The Daily Journal awarded Ms. Mahoney the "Best Oral Argument" in the individual category accolade for that Supreme Court term and went on to say that she "withstood withering questioning from Justice Antonin Scalia while stressing the points relied upon by O'Connor in her opinion for the 5-4 court." Meanwhile, her argument on behalf of Arthur Andersen in a challenge to that firm's criminal conviction was described by The Legal Times as "one of the term's best."

Back to top

Sponsors/Co-sponsors

Sponsor

ABA Division for Public Education

Co-sponsors

Criminal Justice Section
Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities
Judicial Division