Former Assistant Solicitors General Highlight Preview

Upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases will be debated.

The USC Gould School of Law is presenting the seventh annual “U.S. Supreme Court: A Preview,” featuring former Assistant Solicitors General Miguel Estrada and Benjamin Horwich.

Organized by USC Gould Prof. Rebecca Brown, who will serve on the panel with Estrada and Horwich, the program is co-sponsored by the student chapters of the American Constitution Society and Federalist Society. USC Gould Prof. Sam Erman will moderate the discussion, which will take place on Oct. 9 at 5 p.m. at Town & Gown.

Estrada, Horwich and Brown will examine several issues on this year’s U.S. Supreme Court docket, including religious freedom after Hobby Lobby; the First Amendment and threats on Facebook; and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The panel will also hold a general discussion of issues facing the Court, including its recent denial of review in the marriage equality cases.

“The Supreme Court always keeps us guessing, but no one can read the tea leaves better than our two experts,” Brown said. “I am looking forward to thinking through the new cases with them.”

Estrada, former Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General, is a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. A prominent constitutional law scholar, Estrada has also argued 22 cases before the U.S.  Supreme Court and was part of the team that presented President George W. Bush’s position in Bush v. Gore.  Before that, Estrada clerked for the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Horwich, also a former Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General, is of Counsel at Munger, Tolles & Olson.  Horwich has briefed and argued cases before all levels of the federal courts, including 10 arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States and nearly 200 briefs there.  Prior to that he was a law clerk for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and then for Justice Samuel A. Alito at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Brown is a constitutional theorist whose scholarship focuses on judicial review and its relationship to individual liberty under the U.S. Constitution. She is the Newton Professor of Constitutional Law at USC. Brown clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.  She also served as an attorney advisor in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and as an attorney advisor in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

Erman is a scholar of law and history whose research and teaching focus on how and why constitutional change occurs in the United States.  Prior to joining USC Gould in 2013, Erman clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy.  He has also held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Law School and the Smithsonian Institution.