"Judges as Tort Lawmakers"-Fifth Annual Clifford Symposium on Tort Law and Social Policy

The current legal wars about tobacco products and handguns underscore the continuing importance of American judges as tort lawmakers. Since at least the time of the great Benjamin Cardozo, American judges have been key, though sometimes reluctant players in the process by which the law regulating civil recovery for injuries has been fashioned. America's judiciary has been alternatively praised and damned for its efforts. In areas ranging from the asbestos tragedy to the silicone breast implant contretemps, however, it has been the judges who have done the difficult, sometimes unpopular job of trying to "fix what's broke."

Should judges continue in this time honored tradition? Should they retreat into some more passive role? If a more passive role is adopted, what is likely to be the reaction of citizens denied redress by slow moving remote legislatures? These and a host of other questions surrounding the judicial tort lawmaking function will be considered at the Fifth Annual Robert A. Clifford Symposium on Tort Law and Social Policy. Among those speaking will be leading scholars, judges and politicians. They will specifically focus on topics ranging from Benjamin Cardozo as paradigmatic tort lawmaker to judicial participation in products liability lawmaking and the fashioning of new torts.

Conference Faculty

Richard Abel, Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles School of Law
Regina Austin, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Anita Bernstein, Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law
Rod Blagojevich, United States Congressman, Illinois (by videotape)
Richard Durbin, United States Senator, Illinois (by videotape)
Ted Eisenberg, Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Lucinda Finley, Professor of Law, State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law
Marc Galanter, Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin Law School
Michael Green, Professor of Law, University of Iowa College of Law
Henry Hyde, United States Congressman, Illinois (by videotape)
Andrew Kaufman, Professor of Law, Harvard University Law School 
Robert Keeton, Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
Terrence Kiely, Professor of Law, DePaul University College of Law
Stephan Landsman, Clifford Professor of Tort Law and Social Policy, DePaul University College of Law
John McCain, United States Senator, Arizona (by videotape)
Jeffrey O'Connell, Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Robert Rabin, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Gary Schwartz, Professor of Law, University of California at Los Angeles School of Law
Gregory Scott, Justice of the Supreme Court of Colorado
Marshall Shapo, Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law
Stephen Sugarman, Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley School of Law 

The Clifford Tort Law and Social Policy Symposium
In 1994, Robert A. Clifford endowed the country's first Chair in Tort Law and Social Policy. The endowment supports faculty research and teaching as well as sponsoring an annual seminar on timely issues related to the law of torts and how it impacts society.