Training Advocates for Liberty

The Institute for Justice’s success comes from pursuing a unique approach to public interest law. Our approach involves cutting-edge litigation with innovative media relations and community organizing. It enables us to overcome enormous odds and win cases many deem hopeless.

Surprisingly, little of our approach is ever taught in law school. Indeed, students are rarely exposed to the kind of strategic advocacy we practice. That’s especially unfortunate for those students with a passion for liberty. There is lots of work to be done in court to restore constitutional protection for individual liberty, far more than we alone at IJ can ever handle. That’s why, annually since 1992, we have conducted three-day seminars in public interest law for select law students from across the county.

Our seminars provide a unique combination of practical skill development and philosophical foundation. Topics include Natural Rights Philosophy, Cutting-edge Constitutional Theories, Arguing in the Court of Public Opinion, Law and the Regulatory Process, and the Jurisprudence of Liberty. Sessions are taught by Institute for Justice staff and prestigious scholars including Doug Kmiec, Caruso Chair in Constitutional Law, Pepperdine University School of Law; Dr. Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs, Cato Institute; The Honorable Richard Sanders of the Supreme Court of Washington; Dan Troy, chief counsel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Professor G. Marcus Cole of the Stanford University School of Law; and Randy Barnett, Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Boston University School of Law.

Students who have attended past Institute for Justice seminars have gone on to many prestigious positions in the legal profession, academia and government. For instance, 17 have served as U.S. Supreme Court clerks and 36 as clerks for appellate judges.

It’s a great experience for student and teacher alike, creating a new phalanx of advocates for liberty!