Annual Meeting Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Seeing the Novelty and Vulnerability of Democratic Courts

ANNUAL MEETING: TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2014
New Haven Lawn Club, 193 Whitney Avenue, New Haven
Cocktail Hour at 5:30 p.m.     Dinner at 6:30 p.m.
Reservation - PDF
 
Keynote Speakers:
Judith Resnik, Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Dennis Curtis, Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
Winners of the 2014 Order of Coif Book Award

In ancient times, judges were loyal servants of the state; members of the audience were passive spectators watching rituals of power, and only certain persons were eligible to participate as disputants, witnesses, or decision makers. In contrast, today, judges are independent actors in complex and critical relationships with the government and with the public, and all persons are equally entitled to participate. But this twentieth-century invention of democratic courts is at risk by processes that undermine the public dimensions of adjudication and undercut arguments for judicial independence. The discussion, drawn from the book Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms (Yale Press, 2011), will show – literally through many images – how looking at courthouses and their walls provide windows into how courts became egalitarian venues.