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Left Law Students, Save the Date (RebLaw 2019)

PUBLISHED

RebLaw 2019 will take place at Yale Law School on February 15 and 16. Law students who want to be part of building a left answer to the Federalist Society should be there.

If Law and Political Economy is going to be more than law review articles and blog posts–if it is to become a framework for reshaping law to serve democratic equality–it has to be more than a style of legal analysis. It has to be a movement.

The right can serve as at least a partial model. Neoliberal law and economics, constitutional revanchism, and other anti-democratic frameworks have come to dominate our legal and political discourse because of concerted efforts to build networks of conservative lawyers and social scientists, to “educate” judges and legislators, to develop novel legal and policy arguments, to reshape the administrative state, and the like. Conservative lawyers have networks inside and outside the university in which they can test out new ideas, build relationships, nurture young lawyers, develop campaigns, etc. These networks connect directly and indirectly to the base-building, media, and policy-making apparatuses of which the rest of us have felt the brunt for the past several decades. We saw this complex in vivid color during the Kavanaugh confirmation process.

There has been nothing comparable on the left. But the moment seems to be here. Leftist base-building organizations are rising from the ashes, leftists are being elected to offices at the local, state, and federal level, leftist media and think tanks are being created and expanded. It’s time for a network of leftist lawyers comparable to the Federalist Society.

If you’re a law student reading this blog, you have probably already had these thoughts. Let’s put them into action.

At RebLaw 2019, which takes place at Yale Law School on February 15 and 16, law students who are prepared to build organizations that will help the left take power will meet and scheme. Law students at Yale and Harvard have already formed student groups, and will share what they have done and resources they have created. Students at other law schools are planning to do the same. If you’ve already done so or are interested in doing so before February, send an email to luke.herrine@yale.edu.

Save the date. More details to follow.