That’s the title of a very interesting event tomorrow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC:
The conservative legal movement has shown remarkable success at defining the terms of the debate over jurisprudence, while the various visions of liberal theories of law that confront conservative orthodoxy have struggled to gain currency in the political sphere. Conservative legal theorists have coalesced around a relatively compact and politically effective set of ideas while their liberal critics have offered a diverse series of responses. In the face of conservative victories, can liberals forge a coherent response? Or will differences among liberals get in the way? What events might shake up the current state of the debate?
On December 1, the Brookings Institution will host a conference on the asymmetry between liberal and conservative visions of jurisprudence. Participants will discuss how modern conservative orthodoxy arose, the competing visions of liberal jurisprudence, and the prospects for political backlash against conservative orthodoxy and for a resurgence of liberal jurisprudence.
For a related post of mine from 2008, see here, with a response by Jack Balkin here, and my reply here.