The Journal of Law & Liberty is the first student-edited law journal dedicated to the critical exploration of classical liberal ideas. We are dedicated to providing a forum for the debate of issues related to human freedom from both theoretical and practical standpoints. Our interests include the nature of rules and order, theories of rights and liberty, legal history, jurisprudence, constitutional law, historical and contemporary legislation, and more. We seek scholarship from philosophers, jurisprudes, economists, and historians, as well as from lawyers. This breadth, coupled with the diversity of viewpoints among members of the journal, fosters a spirit of debate among journal members that we actively encourage.
In our five-year history, we have featured works from scholars such as Richard Posner, Richard Epstein, Jack Rakove, John Hasnas, Liam Murphy, Randy Barnett, and Eugene Volokh. The journal was cited by Justice Scalia’s majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 at 51 (2008). The Supreme Court referenced Brian Frye’s article, The Peculiar Story of United States v. Miller, 3 N.Y.U. J. L. & Liberty 48 (2007).
Additionally, each year we present the Friedrich A. von Hayek Lecture. This year's lecture, entitled Commandeering the People: Popular Sovereignty and the Health Insurance Mandate, was given by Randy Barnett, the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory at Georgetown University Law Center.
In 2011, the Journal will present a symposium entitled "Plain Meaning in Context: Can Law Survive Its Own Language?"
