USC Law Roth Lecture 2007

Michael W. McConnell will speak Oct. 18

-By Lori Craig

The Honorable Michael W. McConnell, circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, will present the 2007 Justice Lester W. Roth Lecture Thursday, Oct. 18.

The lecture, “In Praise of Losers: Patrick Henry and the Deepest Principle of the Constitution,” begins at 4 p.m. in Town & Gown on the University Park Campus, with a reception to follow.

Michael W. McConnell

A law professor for 17 years before becoming a judge, McConnell has written widely on such subjects as freedom of religion, segregation, unenumerated rights, and constitutional history and theory. He has argued 11 cases before the Supreme Court. He was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Law School from 1985 to 1996, where he held the William B. Graham Chair. He served on the faculty at the University of Utah college of law from 1997 to 2002.

A native of Louisville, Ky., McConnell received his B.A. from Michigan State University and J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was elected Order of the Coif and was the comment editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. He clerked for Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Associate Justice William J. Brennan Jr. on the U.S. Supreme Court.

McConnell was assistant general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget and assistant to the solicitor general of the U.S. Department of Justice. He was nominated for federal judicial service in 2001 by Pres. George W. Bush.

The Justice Lester W. Roth Lecture is named in honor of the former presiding justice of the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District. A 1916 graduate of USC Law, the late Justice Roth was appointed to the bench by Gov. Edmond G. Brown Sr. in 1963. He practiced law in L.A. and Beverly Hills and served as superior court judge and as vice president of Columbia Pictures Corporation. The Roth Lecture is presented at USC Law by a gift from the Louis and Florence Cohen Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles.

For more information, or to RSVP, please contact the USC Law Events Office.