Distinguished Lectures

Each year, a noted legal scholar presents a timely lecture at Boston University School of Law. The Boston University Law Review then publishes the Annual Distinguished Lecturer’s presentation.

Past Annual Distinguished Speakers include:

• David Cole, Preserving Liberty in the Trump Era: Lessons from the Legal Resistance, 99 B.U. L. Rev. 2413 (2020).
• Carol Sanger, Narratives of Fetal Life and Death, 99 B.U. L. Rev. (forthcoming).
• Anne L. Alstott, A New Deal for Old Age, 97 B.U. L. Rev. 1933 (2016).
• Michael W. McConnell, Time, Institutions, and Interpretation, 95 B.U. L. Rev. 1745 (2015).
• Heather K. Gerken, Windsor’s Mad Genius: The Interlocking Gears of Rights and Structure, 95 B.U. L. Rev. 587 (2015).
• William N. Eskridge, Jr., Backlash Politics: How Constitutional Litigation Has Advanced Marriage Equality, 93 B.U. L. Rev. 275 (2013).
• Martha Albertson Fineman, Beyond Identities: The Limits of an Antidiscrimination Approach to Equality, 92 B.U. L. Rev. 1713 (2012).
• Kim Lane Scheppele, The New Judicial Deference, 92 B.U. L. Rev. 89 (2012).
• Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, 91 B.U. L. Rev. 1303 (2011).
• Reva Siegel, Roe’s Roots: The Women’s Rights Claims that Engendered Roe, 90 B.U. L. Rev. 1875 (2010).
• Frank I. Michelman, Foxy Freedom?, 90 B.U. L. Rev. 949 (2010).
• Harold Koh, Looking Over a Crowd and Picking Out Your Friends (2007-2008). Video available here.
• Kathryn Abrams, Women and Antiwar Protest: Rearticulating Gender and Citizenship, 87 B.U. L. Rev. 849 (2007).
• John J. Donohue III, Witness to the Deception: An Insider’s Look at the Disney Trial (2005-2006).

The following Distinguished Lectures are available at HeinOnline:

• Judith Resnik, Whither and Whether Adjudication?, 86 B.U. L. Rev. 1101 (2006).
• John C. Coffee, Gatekeeper Failure and Reform: The Challenge of Fashioning Relevant Reforms, 84 B.U. L. Rev. 301 (2004).
• G. Edward White, Alger Hiss’s Campaign for Vindication, 83 B.U. L. Rev. 1 (2003).
• Martha Minow, Partners, Not Rivals?: Redrawing the Lines Between Public and Private, Non-Profit and Profit, and Secular and Religious, 80 B.U. L. Rev. 1061 (2000).
• Michael J. Trebilcock, Government By Voucher, 80 B.U. L. Rev. 205 (2000).
• Robert C. Post, Defending the Lifeworld: Substantive Due Process in the Taft Court Era, 78 B.U. L. Rev. 1489 (1998).
• Randall Kennedy, How Are We Doing With Loving?: Race, Law, and Intermarriage, 77 B.U. L. Rev. 815 (1997).
• Saul Levmore, Unconditional Relationships, 76 B.U. L. Rev. 807 (1996).
• Carol M. Rose, Trust in the Mirror of Betrayal, 75 B.U. L. Rev. 531 (1995).
• Richard A. Epstein, The Legal Regulation of Genetic Discrimination: Old Responses to New Technology, 74 B.U. L. Rev. 1 (1994).
• Joseph Raz, The Relevance of Coherence, 72 B.U. L. Rev. 273 (1992).
• Catherine A. MacKinnon, Pornography as Defamation and Discrimination, 71 B.U. L. Rev. 793 (1991).
• Cass R. Sunstein, Why the Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine is an Anachronism (with Particular Reference to Religion, Speech, and Abortion), 70 B.U. L. Rev. 593 (1990).
• Robert W. Gordon, The Independence of Lawyers, 68 B.U. L. Rev. 1 (1988).
• Richard A. Posner, The Regulation of the Market in Adoptions, 67 B.U. L. Rev. 59 (1987).