Law schools and the legal profession are currently strongly dominated by a form of orthodox liberal ideology which advocates a centralized and uniform society. While some members of the academic community have dissented from these views, by and large they are taught simultaneously with (and indeed as if they were) the law.
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (“The Federalist Society”), founded in 1982, is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order.
It was founded upon the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. The Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities. This entails reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law. It also requires restoring the recognition of the importance of these norms among lawyers, judges, law students and professors.
In working to achieve these goals, the Society has created a conservative and libertarian intellectual network that extends to all levels of the legal community.
In its mission and purpose, The Federalist Society is unique. By providing a forum for legal experts of opposing views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, law students, academics, and the architects of public policy, the Society has redefined the terms of legal debate. Its expansion in membership, chapters, and program activity has been matched by the rapid growth of the Society’s reputation and the quality and influence of its events.
It has fostered a greater appreciation for the role of separation of powers; federalism; limited, constitutional government; and the rule of law in protecting individual freedom and traditional values. Overall, the Society’s efforts are improving our present and future leaders’ understanding of the principles underlying American law.
The Society is a membership organization that features a Student Division, a Lawyers Division, and a Faculty Division. The Student Division includes more than 10,000 law students at all of the 204 ABA-accredited law schools as well as 10 additional chapters based at non-accredited law schools, satellite campuses for ABA-accredited schools, and a few undergraduate institutions. The national office provides speakers and other assistance to the chapters in organizing their lectures, debates, and educational activities. In the 2017-2018 academic year, its student chapters hosted over 1,000 events, with a total attendance of over 63,000 students.
The Lawyers Division is comprised of over 65,000 legal professionals and others interested in current intellectual and practical developments in the law. It has active chapters in ninety cities, including Concord, New Hampshire, Washington, D.C., New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Indianapolis. Activities include its annual National Lawyers Convention, a Speakers Bureau for organizing lectures and debates, and 15 Practice Groups.
The Federalist Society established its Faculty Division in early 1999 with a conference that was attended by many of the rising stars in the legal academy. The objective of the Faculty Division is to provide events and other tools to help encourage constructive academic discourse, and to help foster the growth and development of rigorous traditional legal scholarship.
Finally, the Federalist Society provides opportunities for effective participation in the public policy process. The Society’s ongoing programs encourage its members to involve themselves more actively in local, state, and national affairs and to contribute more productively to their communities.
In his 2016 campaign for the Presidency, notionally in order to court support from conservative and libertarian members of the legal profession, candidate Trump promised that his appointments to the federal bench as President would for the most part come from a group of prospective judges that had been vetted by The Federalist Society, as opposed to prospective judicial appointees who had been vetted by the American Bar Association, which had, in the minds of many in the legal profession, strayed from its original purposes and moved politically to the left fringe of the profession and American political life. This group, vetted by The Federalist Society, became known as “The List,” and consists mostly, if not entirely, of members of The Federalist Society. President Trump has kept his promise in this regard. Anyone wishes to be provided with a copy of The List should contact this writer offline.
Of the nine sitting Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, four (Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas) are acknowledged to be present or former members of The Federalist Society, while Chief Justice John Roberts is reputed to have been a member at one time, which status has not been confirmed. To the surprise of few, Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan are not now, and have never been, members of The Federalist Society.
Disclosure: This writer is a longtime member of The Federalist Society and served for a time as a member of the Board of the Miami Lawyers Chapter of The Society. He resigned his membership in the American Bar Association many decades ago as its leftward drift and abandonment of its original purposes became apparent.
