FedSoc Forums

FedSoc Forums

*This series was formerly known as Teleforums. FedSoc Forums is a virtual discussion series dedicated to providing expert analysis and intellectual commentary on today’s most pressing legal and policy issues. Produced by The Federalist Society’s Practice Groups, FedSoc Forum strives to create balanced conversations in various formats, such as monologues, debates, or panel discussions. In addition to regular episodes, FedSoc Forum features special content covering specific topics in the legal world, such as: Courthouse Steps: A series of rapid response discussions breaking down all the latest SCOTUS cases after oral argument or final decision A Seat at the Sitting: A monthly series that runs during the Court’s term featuring a panel of constitutional experts discussing the Supreme Court’s upcoming docket sitting by sitting Litigation Update: A series that provides the latest updates in important ongoing cases from all levels of government The Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speakers.

Episodes

Can State Courts Set Global Climate Policy?

October 10, 2025 • 63 mins
Climate change has been described as a “super wicked” policy problem. Policymakers face profound difficulties in assessing the magnitude of the risks, the costs of potential solutions, and the challenges of collective action. Because climate change is global in scope, the source of emissions is often seen as less important than their overall volume. Yet despite extensive efforts by many countries, including the United S...
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Litigation Update: Attorney’s Fees as Deterrence in Civil Rights Litigation

October 9, 2025 • 61 mins
When Congress amended the Civil Rights Act in 1976, it directed federal courts to use judicial discretion to award “reasonable attorney’s fees” to a prevailing party. Yet when state actors are found in violation of the nation’s civil rights laws, what is “reasonable” often means that civil rights attorneys take a reduced fee award. Because of this, states are emboldened to enact and enforce more ...
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Religious Arbitration, Family Law, and Constitutional Limits in Texas

October 8, 2025 • 65 mins
In recent months, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a ban on “Sharia law and Sharia compounds” in the state, citing longstanding principles that U.S. and Texas law take precedence over conflicting foreign law. This position is reflected in the 2017 American Laws for American Courts statute and in an Attorney General opinion affirming that contracts violating Texas public policy cannot be enforced.
These commitments we...
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Litigation Update: Kloosterman v. Metropolitan Hospital

October 6, 2025 • 59 mins
Valerie Kloosterman, a devout Christian and third-generation healthcare professional, served her community as a Physician Assistant for 17 years. In 2021, University of Michigan Health introduced mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training that required participants to affirm statements Kloosterman believed conflicted with her religious convictions and medical judgment. After she requested a religious accommodation, hospita...
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A Seat at the Sitting - October 2025

October 3, 2025 • 87 mins
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by sitting. The cases covered in this preview are listed below.

Villarreal v. Texas (October 6) - Sixth Amendment; Issue(s): Whether a trial court abridges a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel by prohibiting the defendant and his counsel from discussing the defendant's testimony during an overnight recess.
Berk ...
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2025 Ron Rotunda Memorial Webinar

October 2, 2025 • 58 mins
Professor Ron Rotunda wrote seminal law books that are still used in law schools across the country and was the author of over 500 law review articles and other legal publications. These books and articles have been cited more than 2000 times by law reviews, by state and federal courts at every level, by the U.S. Supreme Court, and by foreign courts in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. He was also a member of the Federalist ...
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The Digital Services Act and Global Free Speech

October 1, 2025 • 62 mins
The European Union’s Digital Services Act applies to digital platforms and service providers offering services to users in the EU, regardless of where the company is based—including U.S. companies.
EU officials contend the Digital Services Act is needed to protect democracy from misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech online. Regulators in Brussels promise it will create a safer digital space by holding platforms...
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Courthouse Steps Preview: Olivier v. City of Brandon

September 30, 2025 • 52 mins
Gabriel Olivier is an evangelical Christian who often shares his faith in public. In May 2021, when sharing his faith near an amphitheater in a public park in Brandon, Mississippi, the city’s chief of police confronted Olivier with a recently amended city ordinance requiring “protests” to occur in a designated area. Olivier repositioned himself but soon returned when the designated area proved remote and isolating...
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Litigation Update: Dinner Table Action v. Schneider

September 16, 2025 • 44 mins
In Dinner Table Action v. Schneider, pending in the First Circuit, Maine is appealing a permanent injunction barring the enforcement of a ballot initiative passed in 2024 that would have capped contributions for independent expenditures at $5,000. The initiative, formulated and supported by the anti-super PAC group, Equal Citizens, was designed to challenge the case that “created” super PACs, SpeechNow.org v. FEC, a una...
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Litigation Update: Miller v. McDonald

September 15, 2025 • 52 mins
All fifty states mandate certain vaccinations for schoolchildren. Forty-six of them allow religious exemptions. New York once did as well, maintaining such exemptions for more than half a century before eliminating them in 2019. Medical exemptions remain.
Members of the Amish community now challenge New York’s policy, claiming that opposition to vaccines is integral to their “traditional way of life,” as recognized...
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State-Level Remedies for the Housing Crisis

September 12, 2025 • 68 mins
Many areas of the country are beset by serious housing shortages. State-level regulatory policies such as exclusionary zoning and other restrictions on construction are, according to some analysts, major causes of the crisis. A variety of possible reforms have been enacted or proposed in various studies, including “YIMBY” (“Yes In My Backyard”) zoning deregulation, inclusionary zoning, rent control, and stat...
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Ethics CLE 2025: Recent Developments in Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility

September 9, 2025 • 61 mins
In this CLE webinar, David Cunanan, John J. Park, and Phillip Sechler will discuss recent important developments in the realm of legal ethics and professional responsibility, including the recent adoption of changes to an Arizona rule restricting who can be a complainant for purposes of state bar ethics complaints, developments related to Rule 5.6(b) of the ABA Model Rules, and the expanding use (and misuse) of AI in the legal prof...
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Litigation Update: Tuesday's Google Search Remedy Decision

September 9, 2025 • 93 mins
One year ago, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta held that “Google is a monopolist and has acted as one to maintain its monopoly”, and, in doing so, violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act. On Tuesday, September 2, 2025, Judge Mehta’s remedy decision rejected the United States’ request for structural relief and indicated only limited conduct and behavioral requirements were appropriate to address any past...
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Courthouse Steps Preview: First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin

September 9, 2025 • 41 mins
In First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin, the New Jersey Attorney General, Matthew Platkin, issued a subpoena to a faith-based, pro-life, nonprofit, requiring that it turn over years of sensitive information, including the names and contact information of its donors. First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which provides free medical services and is funded by private donations, refused to comply with the...
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What’s The “Harm?" ESA Rulemaking after Loper Bright

September 9, 2025 • 56 mins
In April, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to rescind a regulation defining the Endangered Species Act’s prohibition against “harm” to an endangered species to include destruction and modification of habitat. That regulation was previously upheld by the Supreme Court under Chevron in Sweet Home v. Babbitt, over a sharp dissent by Justice Scalia accusing the agency of imposing “unfairness to the point o...
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Courthouse Steps Preview: Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J.

September 4, 2025 • 52 mins
In 2020 and 2021, Idaho and West Virginia passed laws that required public schools and colleges to designate sports by biological sex and to forbid males from competing on women’s sports teams. Two male athletes who identified as females, one a middle school shot-put and discus thrower and the other a collegiate cross-country runner, challenged the laws in the U.S. District Courts for the District of Idaho and Southern Distri...
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After Drummond: What’s Next in the Debate over Religious Charter Schools?

September 3, 2025 • 61 mins
In Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the question of whether the operation of charter schools by religious entities was constitutionally permissible (or even required). The Court deadlocked 4-4, leaving in place a ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court that the religious charter school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, violated the Establishment Clause. This forum will ...
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Ethics or Ideology? Bar Associations and the Boundaries of Professional Discipline

September 2, 2025 • 62 mins
Across the country, bar associations are increasingly at the center of legal and political controversy. Recent disciplinary proceedings—such as efforts by the DC Bar to disbar Acting OIRA Administrator Jeffrey Clark, ethics complaints against Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen and Ninth Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke—have raised urgent questions about the line between professional regulation and ideological weaponi...
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Does One Size Fit All? Qualified Immunity Inside and Outside Split-Second Policing Decisions

August 28, 2025 • 65 mins
Qualified immunity shields all government officials from suit when the constitutional rights they violate are not “clearly established.” Yet the public conversation often centers on police officers. Supreme Court cases on the doctrine frequently involve split-second law enforcement decisions, and when Congress considered reform in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, its focus was again on police, excluding...
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Litigation Update: Etienne v. Ferguson

August 28, 2025 • 48 mins
The ongoing case of Etienne v. Ferguson raises profound questions about the interplay between religious liberty and state authority, particularly regarding Catholic confession, which centuries-old religious doctrine deems as absolutely confidential. The case challenges Washington's Senate Bill 5375, titled "Concering the duty of clergy to report child abuse and neglect." Does a state mandatory reporter law violate the First Amendme...
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