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Law Review Symposium
Chapman Law Review Symposium

ยป The Annual Chapman Law Review Symposium

Every spring since 1999, Fowler School of Law's Chapman Law Review has hosted its annual Law Review Symposium. Topics are selected to challenge participants to confront pressing legal issues from a variety of perspectives. Panelists have included distinguished scholars, judges and practitioners.

2023 SYMPOSIUM
Blockchain and Beyond: The interaction between distributed ledger technology and the law.

Friday, January 27, 2023

Symposium Schedule

10:15 - 11:45 a.m.: Panel 1 - Blockchain, the Law, and the Future

Blockchain technology is increasingly inserting itself into the legal infrastructure, from intellectual property to public records and estate planning; this new technology is becoming ubiquitous. What is the potential for this innovation, and what is its role in the future for lawyers?

  • George Geis, Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
  • Michele Neitz, Professor of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law
  • Billy Abbott, Partner, O’Melveny & Meyers
  • Ravi Mohan, Partner, Rutan & Tucker
  • Moderator: Professor Kurt Eggert, Director of the Alona Cortese Elder Law Center at the Fowler School of Law

Noon - 1 p.m.: Keynote Address

Public Vs. Private Digital Currencies: Current Developments and Fundamental Tensions Between Them.

Featuring John O. McGinnis, George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

1:15 - 2:30 p.m.: Panel 2 - Innovation Vs. Regulation of Blockchain Technology

Despite its technical advantages and autonomous infrastructure, many view blockchain technologies only as a tradable investment. Some argue that investors would benefit from the protections that regulations bring while others oppose regulation as a danger to innovation and the principles of digital trust that blockchain was founded on. What does the future hold for this novel technology?

  • Lan Cao, Betty Hutton Williams Professor of International Economic Law, Fowler School of Law
  • Carol Goforth, Professor of Law, University of Arkansas School of Law
  • Tom W. Bell, Professor of Law, Chapman University Fowler School of Law
  • Moderator: Professor Kurt Eggert, Director of the Alona Cortese Elder Law Center at the Fowler School of Law

Previous Keynote Speakers

  • United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
  • Former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean
  • Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III
  • Steven Schwarcz, Stanley A. Star Professor of Law and Business, Duke University
  • Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff
  • Michael Flaherty, President of Walden Media
John O. McGinnis
Keynote Speaker

John O. McGinnis

John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.