Call for Papers from Junior Scholars
Harvard Law Review or SCOTUSblog?
Solitary insight or collaboration?
First principles or workable solutions?
What does legal scholarship look like in the 21st century, and what should it look like? At the beginning of formal legal education, legal scholarship was largely doctrinal in nature. In the second era, in the wake of legal realism, legal scholars focused more on policy issues but without broad theoretical scope. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, there was a sharp turn toward theory. This third wave of legal scholarship was marked by increased interdisciplinary scholarship, increased diversity in the academy, and growing relationships with the wider university. We are now in a new era of legal scholarship – version 4.0.
Northeastern University School of Law is hosting a conference to explore the future of legal scholarship, through conversations among prominent legal scholars. Plenary speakers include Patricia Williams (Columbia University) and Noah Feldman (Harvard University). To accompany panels discussing the goals and methods of legal scholarship 4.0, Northeastern invites junior scholars (those who have spent 7 years or fewer as a full-time law professor) to share their works-in-progress as examples of the new legal scholarship.
Break-out works-in-progress sessions will include a comment on each paper by senior faculty, and discussion by fellow panelists and conference participants. Conversations will continue throughout the conference at breakfast and lunch (provided), as well as during the speakers’ dinner. Interested junior faculty members are invited to submit an abstract (not to exceed 500 words) of the project they would like to present by Oct. 1, 2013 to Rick Doyon, r.doyon@neu.edu. The chosen participants will be expected to submit completed paper drafts by Feb. 13, 2014, and to participate in the entirety of the conference.
