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Erwin Chemerinsky to Deliver 2008 Tucker Lecture at W&L Law

Erwin Chemerinsky, founding dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine, and an expert in constitutional law, will deliver this year’s Tucker Lecture as part of the annual Law and Media Symposium, hosted by Washington and Lee University at the School of Law.

Chemerinsky will deliver his remarks on Friday, Nov. 14, beginning at 1 p.m. in the Millhiser Moot Court Room, Sydney Lewis Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

The symposium, “The Wild, Wild Web: Free Speech, Libel, and the First Amendment in the Digital Age,” will also feature the Hon. Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, judicial conservative and well-known free-speech advocate.

Chemerinsky’s career as a scholar and teacher spans nearly thirty years and includes teaching stints at Duke University, the University of Southern California and DePaul University. An active appellate advocate at both the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, he was named in 2005 as one of “the top 20 legal thinkers in America” by Legal Affairs magazine.

In September 2007, Chemerinsky was named dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine, heading California’s first new public law school in 40 years. Scheduled to begin classes in the fall of 2009, the fledgling school has offered free tuition for three years for the first enrolling class.

The Tucker Lecture at the School of Law was first established by the W&L Board of Trustees in 1949 to mark the bicentennial of the University and the centennial of the Law School. It was named after John Randolph Tucker, hired in 1870 as the second teacher in legal education, and named the first dean of the Washington and Law University School of Law in 1893.