Sherrard Conversation | "Bush v Gore in 2000 and the US Supreme Court in 2020. The Court and the judges in a disputed election. A reporter’s perspective."

[Bookings will open at 10:00 on Wednesday 23 September]

A conversation between Master Linda Greenhouse and Master Richard Wilmot-Smith

A focused discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court, its history and constitutional place in the light of current events and particularly the 2020 presidential election which may engage the Court as in Bush v Gore 531 U.S. 98 (2000).

Master Greenhouse is Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. She was a correspondent for The New York Times for nearly 30 years. Her beat was the U.S. Supreme Court and the Judges. For this work she won a Pulitzer Prize. 

Bush v Gore 531 U.S. 98 (2000) was one of the cases she covered. She has a bi-weekly Op-Ed column in The New York Times which deals with legal matters and particularly the U.S. Supreme Court.

Master Wilmot-Smith (Treasurer 2018) is a practicing barrister and spent four years as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina studying history and journalism.

A number of places has been made available to the University of North Carolina School of Law, with whom the Inn usually holds mooting exchanges.

Click here to see details of the QS Requirements and how to be credited with the QS for this session

Learning Outcomes:

1. Acquiring knowledge - the session will identify key features of the U.S. Supreme Court and explain basic features of its history, jurisprudence and its role in the U.S. political system.

2. Evaluate - students will be enabled to appraise and evaluate the work of the U.S. Supreme Court and its relationship to American politics.

Links to the Professional Statement, wider workings of the Bar, administration of justice or a public interest matter

There is immense public interest in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. This session will provide an education in how the U.S. Supreme Court could decide its outcome and its impact on the rule of law and the respect for the rule of law which courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court, must nurture.

This session will engage students in understanding a court of final appeal which has the power to declare statutes unconstitutional and thus declare them void in contra-distinction to the U.K. where Parliament is sovereign and the U.K. Supreme Court is a creature of statute.

It will add to students’  knowledge and understanding of the key concepts and principles of public and private law in the context of a written constitution.
 

Click here to view the BSB's Professional Statement

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