Testimony of Chai R. Feldblum

Testimony of Chai R. Feldblum, for What An Aging Workforce Can Teach Us About Workplace Flexibility July 18, 2005

The Joy of Teaching Legislation

I am going to talk about teaching legislation, a class I have taught several times at Georgetown University Law Center, as well as teaching a federal legislation clinic, which I founded ten years ago at the law school. Bill Eskridge has done a wonderful job laying out the different ways one can teach a course in legislation; you will see that my approach focuses on teaching the skills that, as Bill also correctly noted, all young lawyers will need when they start practicing

Rectifying the Tilt: Equality Lessons from Religion, Disability, Sexual Orientation, and Transgender

It was an honor and a joy to deliver the Tenth Annual Frank M. Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service and to publish it now in the Maine Law Review. I thank you for this opportunity. I have always believed that a life worth living includes two necessary components: passion and connection. I experience those components both in my work and in my personal life. I love the passion I find in my work - both in my advocacy efforts to advance justice in the world and in the teaching through which I try to pass on to others whatever skills and wisdom I have accumulated over the years. And I love the passion I find in my personal life, in my efforts to explore and commit to the joys and challenges of intimacy and friendship. The connections that I treasure track my various passions: starting from the connections I experience in an intimate relationship and in personal friendships, to the connections I have with colleagues, students, and mentors. Judge Frank Morey Coffin is a remarkable and joyous connection in my life. It is the connection of a mentor, of a teacher, and of a friend. And in the example of his life, Judge Coffin has demonstrated his passion for making the world a better place, for imparting wisdom (and jibes and practical jokes) to his students, and for maintaining a full and happy home life. I have been enriched by this connection with Judge Coffin - both enriched with little pearls of wisdom and with great peals of laughter - and I am everlastingly grateful for those riches. I can think of no finer way to honor that connection, and to pay back some of the amazing gifts showered on me by Judge Coffin, than to deliver (and publish) the Coffin lecture on law and public service, which encompasses so many of the passions and connections of my life. And on this occasion of the Tenth Annual Coffin Lecture, I feel I stand here as a representative of every former, and current, law clerk of Judge Coffin, all of whom, I know, would echo my gratitude and joy for their connection to the judge

The Art of Legislative Lawyering and the Six Circles Theory of Advocacy

A legislative lawyer is a person who exists in Washington, D.C., and in almost every city and state in this country where legislation and administrative regulations are developed. But most people do not know who that person is or what that person does. In fact, most advocacy organizations that should be hiring legislative lawyers have no idea who a legislative lawyer is. The author coined the term legislative lawyer when she created a Federal Legislation Clinic at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. over a decade ago. The author needed to explain to her faculty colleagues what type of law she intended to teach her students in the Clinic and why such learning deserved six (now ten) law school credits. The author explained at the time, legislative lawyers are individuals who practice law in a political, advocacy context. Good legislative lawyers are: (1) good at comprehending, analyzing, and manipulating legal text and, at the same time, good at understanding the political dynamics of legislative and administrative systems; (2) able to gain the trust and respect of both legal players and political players in an advocacy effort because of their joint competency in law and politics; and (3) able, because of such trust and respect, to be effective and creative translators and negotiators between the often disparate worlds of law, policy, and politics. The author’s primary goal in this article is to describe the skills and talents of a good legislative lawyer. The legislative lawyer is a key component of the author’s Six Circles Theory of Effective Advocacy. She developed this theory mostly (although not exclusively) out of her experience working on the Americans with Disabilities Act from 1988 to 1990. An additional goal of this article, therefore, is to set forth the Six Circles Theory of Effective Advocacy and to highlight its potential contribution towards structuring an effective legislative or regulatory effort. The author’s final goal of this article is to provide an overview of how she teaches legislative lawyering in a law school clinical setting. The author hopes this section of the article, together with its appendices, will be useful to anyone who wishes to establish a similar clinic focusing on legislation and administrative regulations

Moral Conflict and Conflicting Liberties

The authors\u27 goal in this chapter is to surface some of the commonalities between belief liberty and identity liberty and to offer some public policy suggestions for what to do when these liberties conflict. She first wants to make transparent the conflict that she believes exists between laws intended to protect the liberty of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people so that they may live lives of dignity and integrity and the religious beliefs of some individuals whose conduct is regulated by such laws. The author believes those who advocate for LGBT equality have downplayed the impact of such laws on some people\u27s religious beliefs and, equally, she believes those who have sought religious exemptions from such civil rights laws have downplayed the impact that such exemptions would have on LGBT people. Second, the author wants to suggest that the best framework for dealing with this conflict is to analyze religious people\u27s claims as belief liberty interests under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, rather than as free exercise claims under the First Amendment. There were important historical reasons for including the First Amendment in our Constitution, with its dual Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses. But the First Amendment should not be understood as the sole source of protection for religious people when the claims such individuals raise also implicate the type of liberty interests that should legitimately be considered under the Due Process Clauses of our Constitution. The authors\u27 argument in this chapter is that intellectual coherence and ethical integrity demand that we acknowledge that civil rights laws can burden an individual\u27s belief liberty interest when the conduct demanded by these laws burdens an individual\u27s core beliefs, whether such beliefs are religiously or secularly based. Acknowledging that these liberty interests exist and can be burdened by civil rights laws does not necessarily mean that such laws will be invalidated or that exemptions from the law will always be granted to individuals holding such beliefs. Rather, as she hopes to demonstrate below, Justice Souter\u27s concurrence in Washington v. Glucksberg offers us a useful approach for engaging in an appropriate substantive due process analysis that provides us with a means of seriously considering the liberty interest at stake without necessarily invalidating the law burdening that interest. Finally, the author offers her own assessment of how these conflicts might be resolved in our democratic system. She has no illusions that either LGBT rights advocates or religious freedom advocates will decide that she has offered the correct resolution. The authors primary goal in this chapter is simply to argue that this conflict needs to be acknowledged in a respectful manner by both sides, and then addressed through the legislative processes of our democratic system. Whether the authors particular resolution is ultimately accepted feels less important to her than helping to foster a fruitful conversation about possible resolutions

Legislatures, Agencies, Courts and Advocates: How Laws are Made, Interpreted and Modified

This chapter explains the nature and practice of lawmaking, legal advocacy, and legal research as they relate to the field of work and family. Through reference to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 as a case study, the authors explain the dynamic processes by which laws are made, interpreted and modified by legislatures, administrative agencies and courts, with the help of legal advocates. Their goal is not to provide substantive analysis of laws related to work and family, but rather to enable researchers from a range of disciplines to understand and access the legal system, as it currently exists and as it is evolving. In addition, for those inclined to change the current system through legal advocacy, this chapter provides a window into how advocates may use the lawmaking process to promote their preferred work and family policies