ACS Austin: 2024 SCOTUS Review: Judicial Power, Presidential Immunity, and Democratic Backsliding

Join the ACS University of Texas ACS Student Chapter, the Austin ACS Lawyer Chapter, and the University of Texas Journal of Civil Liberties and Civil Rights for a conversation on the Supreme Court Term, including discussions on judicial power, presidential immunity and democratic backsliding.

Featuring:

LISA ESKOW

Lisa Eskow, Co-Director of the Supreme Court Clinic, joined the Texas Law faculty in 2014 after eighteen years as an appellate specialist in private practice and public service. Named 2018 Professor of the Year for Legal Writing by the Student Bar Association and 2016 Professor of the Year by the Women's Law Caucus, Professor Eskow taught first-year classes (Legal Analysis & Communication, Persuasive Writing & Advocacy) and upper-level electives (Advanced Writing for Litigation, U.S. Supreme Court Advocacy) prior to teaching in the Supreme Court Clinic full time.

A sixteen-time Texas “Super Lawyer,” Professor Eskow has argued in the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas Supreme Court, and federal and state courts of appeals nationwide. During her decade in the Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Group at Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP, Professor Eskow handled a wide range of domestic and international matters, including intellectual-property disputes, bankruptcy and securities litigation, and white-collar criminal appeals. Prior to practicing at Weil, Professor Eskow served as Deputy Solicitor General for the State of Texas, specializing in constitutional and sovereign-immunity issues.

Professor Eskow clerked for the Hon. Pamela A. Rymer on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after graduating from Stanford Law School.

LEE KOVARSKY

Professor Kovarsky is a leading scholar of the death penalty and habeas corpus. His teaching and writing also focuses on civil and criminal procedure, criminal justice, federal jurisdiction, and conflicts of law. His most recent articles are forthcoming or have been published in the California Law Review, the Chicago Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Harvard Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review. He has co-authored two books with Professor Brandon L. Garrett, including a leading case book on habeas corpus for which the second edition is in progress. His scholarship has been cited by the United States Supreme Court, as well as by seven of the federal circuit courts. He was elected to the American Law Institute in 2020.

Professor Kovarsky remains an active habeas and capital litigator. He regularly represents death-sentenced prisoners as they await execution, and he has worked on many dozens of capital post-conviction cases. He argued Ayestas v. Davis before the U.S. Supreme Court during the October 2017 term, with the Court deciding unanimously in the capital prisoner's favor. He frequently drafts and contributes to amicus briefing before U.S. Supreme and other appellate courts, usually representing law professors or other professional organizations, including the American Bar Association (ABA) and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). He also appears regularly in popular media, having written for the New York Times, MSNBC, Slate, and Salon, and having been a featured guest on NPR's All Things Considered and Slate's What Next.

Professor Kovarsky received his B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Yale University, with awards of academic distinction in both majors. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was an Articles Editor for the Virginia Law Review. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He worked for several years as an appellate practitioner before beginning his academic career with a three-year appointment as an Acting Assistant Professor at New York University School of Law. He joined the School of Law in the summer of 2020, after a decade at the University of Maryland.

TARA GROVE

Tara Leigh Grove is the Vinson & Elkins Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law. Grove graduated summa cum laude from Duke University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she served as the Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review. Grove clerked for Judge Emilio Garza on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and then spent four years as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Appellate Staff, where she argued fifteen cases in the courts of appeals.

Grove’s research focuses on the federal judiciary, interpretive theory, and the constitutional separation of powers. She has published with such prestigious law journals as the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. Grove has received awards for both her research and her teaching.

In 2021, Grove served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, a bipartisan commission created by President Biden and charged with examining proposals for Supreme Court reform. Since 2022, Grove has worked on the Princeton Initiative on Reclaiming the Constitutional Powers of Congress, which brings together former members of Congress, political scientists, and law professors. Grove serves as the Co-Chair of the section on the Appointments Process for the Princeton Initiative. Grove is a co-author of Low & Jeffries' Federal Courts and the Law of Federal-State Relations, a leading federal courts casebook, and she has served as the Chair of the Federal Courts Section of the Association of American Law Schools. Grove has been a visiting professor at both Harvard Law School and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

1 hour of TX CLE has been Approved.