Seton Hall | Law - Religious Legal Theory

Religious Legal Theory: The State of the Field

The Conference

This symposium will assess the “state of the field” of religious legal theory, consolidating the advances and charting new directions for religious perspectives on law and public policy. It will include contributions from persons of various religious perspectives and will foster dialogue across the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Eastern religious traditions. In addition to law professors, the conference will host theologians, political scientists, sociologists, and scholars in other disciplines.

When & Where

Thursday, November 12, 9:00 AM to Friday, November 13, 4:00 PM

Seton Hall University School of Law is located in Newark, New Jersey, a 20-minute train ride from Penn Station-New York, and a 15-minute taxi ride from Newark International Airport.

Registration

Registration fee is $75. The fee includes the conference banquet on Thursday evening. Click here to Register. Note: Fee is waived for Seton Hall faculty and seminary members. If you are a Seton Hall faculty or seminary member, send an email to rosa.alves-ferreria@shu.edu with your R.S.V.P.

Accommodations

The conference hotel is the Hilton Newark located at Gateway Center and across the street from Seton Hall Law School. Call 973-622-5000 for room reservations.

Religious Legal Theory

During the twentieth century, purely secular perspectives dominated legal theory. Most legal scholars thought of religion with regard to the law exclusively in terms of church-state relations and freedom of religion. In recent years, however, scholars of law and other disciplines have expanded their focus to include the contributions that religious convictions and perspectives can make to general legal theory, and to our understanding of many areas of the law that seem, at first sight, unrelated to religion.

For example, in his address at the 2008 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, AALS President John Garvey emphasized the importance of religious perspectives on law. Major university presses have published volumes on the intersection of faith, legal theory and theology (”Faith and Law: How Religious Traditions from Calvinism to Islam View American Law” (Cochran, ed. NYU Press 2007); “The Teachings of Modern Christianity on Law, Politics and Human Nature” (Witte and Alexander, eds. Columbia University Press 2006); “Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought” (McConnell, Cochran & Carmella, eds. Yale University Press 2001).

Established legal scholars have published work in law reviews offering explicitly religious perspectives. The Journal of Law and Religion publishes symposia on topics such as “Emerging Applications of Jewish Law in American Legal Scholarship,” and The Journal of Catholic Social Thought offers symposia on a variety of topics, both global and domestic. Numerous blogs and other non-traditional publishing venues are devoted to serious reflection on religious conceptions of law and public good.

Plenary Speakers

	SAMUEL LEVINE Professor of Law Pepperdine University School of Law Professor Levine joined the Pepperdine Law School faculty in 2002. He has published more than forty law review articles in the areas of legal ethics, criminal law, law and religion, Jewish law, and constitutional law. His articles have appeared in numerous law reviews, including Fordham Law Review, Houston Law Review, Indiana Law Review, Maryland Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Tulane Law Review, and Utah Law Review, as well as peer-reviewed journals, such as the American Journal of Legal History, Constitutional Commentary, Dublin University Law Journal (Trinity College Dublin), and the Journal of Law and Religion. Professor Levine’s scholarship has also appeared in textbooks and anthologies, has been included in course adoptions in the United States and Israel, has been cited by courts in the United States and New Zealand, and has been cited by scholars in the United States, Israel, Canada, and Australia. Read more.

	DAVID SKEEL S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law University of Pennsylvania School of Law David Skeel is the author of Icarus in the Boardroom (Oxford, 2005) and Debt’s Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America (Princeton, 2001), as well as numerous articles and other publications. He has been interviewed on Nightline, Chris Matthews’ Hardball (MSNBC), National Public Radio, and Marketplace, among others, and has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and other newspapers and magazines. Skeel has twice received the Harvey Levin award for outstanding teaching, as selected by a vote of the graduating class, and has also received the University’s Lindback Award for distinguished teaching. In addition to corporate law and bankruptcy, Skeel also writes on sovereign debt, law and religion, and poetry and the law, and is an elder at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Read More.

	AMY UELMEN Director, Institute on Religion, Law, and Lawyer's Work Fordham University Amy Uelmen joined Fordham Law in 2001 as the Director of the Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer’s Work. She has taught the lecture in Professional Responsibility as well as seminars in Religious Lawyering, Catholic Social Thought and the Law, and Catholic Social Thought and Economic Justice. Her scholarship focuses on how Catholic social thought might shed light on tort law, legal ethics and legal education, and how principles of dialogue might inform debates about religion in the public square. She coordinates the Institute’s interfaith track and its Catholic Lawyer’s Program. Read More.

	L. ALI KHAN Professor of Law Washburn University School of Law L. Ali Khan initially trained as a civil engineer. He later switched to law, obtaining a law degree from Punjab University, Lahore. In 1976, Khan immigrated to the United States and studied law at New York University School of Law where he received his LL.M. and J.S.D. Khan is a member of the New York Bar. Khan has authored three academic books published in the prestigious series Developments in International Law. Over the years, he has written numerous law review articles on the U.S. Constitution, comparative constitutional law, legal education, human rights, international disputes, and terrorism. His academic writings are used as part of course materials in universities across the world. Khan has devoted much of his academic scholarship to Islamic law and conflicts involving Muslim communities. Read More.

	ROBERT VISCHER Associate Professor University of St. Thomas School of Law Rob Vischer’s scholarship explores the intersection of law, religion, and public policy, with a particular focus on the religious and moral dimensions of professional identity. His current book project, titled Conscience and the Common Good: Reclaiming the Space Between Person and State, defines and defends the relational dimension of conscience and identifies ways in which our legal system can better maintain the communal venues in which the dictates of conscience are shaped, articulated, and lived out. His scholarship has appeared in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Illinois Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Florida Law Review, Indiana Law Review, Stanford Journal of Law & Policy, Journal of Law & Religion, Legal Ethics, Journal of Catholic Social Thought, and Journal of Catholic Legal Studies, among others. He also writes for the magazines Commonweal and America, and blogs regularly at Mirror of Justice and Legal Ethics Forum. He has served as a reviewer for the Journal of Law & Religion and the University of Chicago Press. Professor Vischer teaches Professional Responsibility, Torts, Family Law, Foundations of Justice, and The Religious Lawyer. Read More.