Feature Stories Campus Events All Stories

W&L Law’s Trammell Selected to Present at Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum Alan Trammell will present "The False Promise of Jurisdiction Stripping," which is forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review.

trammelloutside3-800x533 W&L Law's Trammell Selected to Present at Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty ForumAlan Trammell

Washington and Lee law professor Alan Trammell has been selected to present at the Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum. Participants in the prestigious forum for newer scholars are chosen by blind review.

Trammell teaches and writes primarily in the fields of civil procedure, federal courts, and conflict of laws. He is recognized as one of the leading authorities on nationwide injunctions and has been invited to present his research at numerous conferences and on podcasts. His scholarship has appeared in the Virginia Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Texas Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review.

At the forum, he will present “The False Promise of Jurisdiction Stripping,” which is forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review. In the paper, coauthored by Dan Epps of Washington University in St. Louis, the authors criticize the practice of stripping federal courts of jurisdiction over some cases in order to prevent bad decisions and judicial second-guessing concerning congressional action.

“Whatever the scope of Congress’s Article III power to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, jurisdiction stripping is unlikely to succeed as a practical strategy. At least beyond the very short term, Congress cannot use it to effectuate policy in the face of judicial opposition. Its consequences are chaotic and unpredictable, courts have tools they can use to push back on jurisdiction strips if they desire, and the active participation of the judiciary is ultimately necessary for Congress to achieve many of its goals. Jurisdiction stripping will often accomplish nothing and sometimes will even exacerbate the very problems it purports to solve.”

The goal of the Junior Faculty Forum is discourse both on the merits of particular papers and on appropriate methodologies for doing work in that genre. The Forum also hopes to increase the sense of community among American legal scholars generally, particularly by strengthening ties between new and veteran professors. Meetings are held each spring, rotating at Yale, Stanford, and Harvard. Twelve to twenty scholars (with one to seven years in teaching) are chosen by blind review to present.

If you know a W&L faculty member who has done great, accolade-worthy things, tell us about them! Nominate them for an accolade.