The Seminar has been heralded as perhaps the only forum where leading jurists can confidentially and freely discuss the most important legal issues of the day with leading academic lawyers. Topics considered at past meetings have included freedom of expression, international norms, and terrorism. To date, ten Seminars have been held. The Seminar has been directed by Professor Paul Gewirtz since its founding in 1996, and since 2006 by Professor Robert Post.
Participants include some of the world’s foremost jurists. Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court has attended every Seminar. Other regular Seminar participants have included Lord Harry Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales; President Aharon Barak of the Supreme Court of Israel; and Chief Justice Ramesh Lahoti of the Supreme Court of India, among others. A volume of cases (often decided by participating judges) and other materials grounds each discussion.
Members of the Yale Law School faculty moderate the discussions, which have been marked by a rare combination of intellectual seriousness, candor, verve, and a sense of common purpose. Describing the Seminar’s value to him, Lord Woolf has observed that “[t]hings that might not have seemed possible become possible, and problems that seemed impenetrable are found to be surmountable, because of the different approaches that the discussions revealed.”