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Legal scholars and positive theorists from law schools across the country will gather to discuss the role of "legal doctrine" at a Northwestern University School of Law faculty conference.

The conference, titled “Legal Doctrine and Political Control” and organized by Professor Emerson Tiller, will take place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, April 29, and from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, April 30, at the School of Law, 357 East Chicago Avenue, and is free and open to the public.

Traditional legal scholarship has highlighted the normative importance of legal doctrine and has sought to shape it. Political scientists have, for the most part, taken doctrine as given or discounted the importance of it altogether.

Positive political theorists have begun to tackle the disconnect between studies of doctrine formation/use and studies of political-institutional competition. What is doctrine? Is it purely normative guidance? or does doctrine have political control power in and of itself within the judicial hierarchy? Is doctrine aimed at those on the outside (Congress, the public, scholars) or on the inside (judges and lawyers)?

The purpose of this conference is to encourage scholars to think about these and related issues and to generate publishable articles.

The "Law and Positive Political Theory Conference" is the seventh conference in the Northwestern University School of Law Faculty Research Conference Series. The series was inaugurated in 1998 and is organized each year by faculty members to bring together leading authorities in a public forum to present research and discuss important academic and public policy issues.

This event is sponsored by the Professor Irving Gordon Symposia Fund, established in 1996 to honor the memory of Irving Gordon, a graduate of the class of 1947 and member of the Law School faculty from 1966 until his death in 1994.

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