GW Law faculty will provide their expertise on the key cases facing the U.S. Supreme Court in its upcoming October term on Tuesday, September 22, at the law school.
Taking advantage of GW Law’s prime location blocks away from the White House, U.S. Capitol Building, and the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court Preview is an annual tradition that provides students, faculty, alumni, and members of the public with the information they need to know about the highest court in the nation.
This year’s preview will be moderated by Chris Geidner, the Supreme Court and law reporter behind Law Dork. He will be joined by Professors Robert Cottrol, Renee Lettow Lerner, and Alan Morrison.
Moderator
Chris Geidner
Journalist, Law Dork
Chris Geidner is an award-winning journalist who covers the Supreme Court, law, and politics at Law Dork. His more than two decades in journalism includes widely recognized coverage of the courts, LGBTQ issues, the criminal legal system, and other complex legal and political questions. He previously worked as the Supreme Court correspondent and legal editor at BuzzFeed News and has written for many publications, including The New York Times and MSNBC. Among other recognition, Geidner was named Journalist of the Year by NLGJA, the LGBTQ journalists' association, in 2014. Before moving to Washington, DC, in 2009, Geidner was a practicing lawyer in Columbus, Ohio. He attended Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Ohio State Law Journal. It was in law school that Geidner originally started the Law Dork blog.
Participants
Robert Cottrol
Harold Paul Green Research Professor of Law
Robert J. Cottrol came to the George Washington University in 1995 as a visiting professor of law and legal history in the law school. Previously, he had taught at Rutgers University and Boston College, and had visited at the University of Virginia. Professor Cottrol is a specialist in American and Comparative Legal History. He also teaches criminal law, law and society in Latin America, and a seminar on the Second Amendment. In addition to being the Harold Paul Green Research Professor in the law school, he is also a Professor of History and Sociology in the Columbian College at the George Washington University. In addition to advising law students, he has served on thesis and dissertation committees in the history and sociology departments.
Robert Glicksman
J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law
Robert L. Glicksman is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on environmental, natural resources, and administrative law issues. A graduate of the Cornell Law School, his areas of expertise include environmental, natural resources, administrative, and property law. Before joining the law school faculty in 2009, Professor Glicksman taught at the University of Kansas School of Law, where he joined the faculty in 1982 and was named the holder of the Robert W. Wagstaff Distinguished Professor of Law in 1995. Professor Glicksman has practiced with law firms in DC and New Jersey before joining and while on leave from academia, focusing on environmental, energy, and administrative law issues. He has consulted on various environmental and natural resources law issues, including work for the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation in Montreal, Canada.
Renée Lettow Lerner
Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor
Renée Lettow Lerner is the Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School. Professor Lerner is an expert in the fields of U.S. and English legal history, civil and criminal procedure, and comparative law. Her book The Jury: A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford University Press in 2023, discusses the history and practice of the jury around the globe. The book was the subject of a major symposium of the George Washington Law Review in October 2024. She is also the author, with John Langbein and Bruce Smith, of the book History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (2009). She is writing a book about the American civil jury, from the colonial period to the present.
Alan Morrison
Professorial Lecturer in Law
Alan B. Morrison is the former Lerner Family Associate Dean for Public Interest & Public Service at GW Law. In that role, he was responsible for creating pro bono opportunities for students, bringing a wide range of public interest programs to the law school, encouraging students to seek positions in the non-profit and government sectors, and assisting students find ways to fund their legal education to make it possible for them to pursue careers outside of traditional law firms. For most of his career, Professor Morrison worked for the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which he co-founded with Ralph Nader in 1972 and directed for over 25 years. His work involved law reform litigation in various areas including: open government, opening up the legal profession, suing agencies that fail to comply with the law, enforcing principles of separation of powers, protecting the rights of consumers, and protecting unrepresented class members in class action settlements.
