U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett will deliver the keynote address at the Notre Dame Law Review’s 2022 Federal Courts Symposium at 12:30 p.m. Feb. 14 (Monday) in the Law School’s McCartan Courtroom.

Due to limited seating in the McCartan Courtroom, in-person attendance at Barrett’s speech will be open only to Notre Dame Law School students and faculty, students in Notre Dame’s Constitutional Studies Program and members of the media.

Barrett graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1997 and joined the faculty as a professor of law in 2002. She served as executive editor of the Law Review when she was a student and later served as its faculty adviser for many years.

In 2017, she was appointed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. She remained a Notre Dame Law School faculty member and continued to teach part-time after her judicial appointment. She was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court in October 2020.

“For more than two decades, Notre Dame Law School was blessed by Justice Barrett’s brilliant scholarship, devoted teaching and thoughtful approach to legal questions,” said G. Marcus Cole, the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School. “We look forward to welcoming her back to the Law School for this year’s Federal Courts Symposium.”

The 2022 Federal Courts Symposium, titled “The Nature of the Federal Equity Power,” will focus on that which remains unsettled about the qualitative nature of the federal equity power, its relationship vis-à-vis law and its proper scope within the broader constitutional system of law. The symposium will feature several panels of prominent legal scholars who will address these complex questions from historical, judicial and academic perspectives. 

The papers from the symposium will be published in the Federal Courts issue, one of Law Review’s five annual issues and dedicated specifically to topics in the area of federal courts, practice and procedure.

“Our current volume of the Notre Dame Law Review marks the 25th anniversary of Justice Barrett’s tenure as executive editor of the journal. In that role, Justice Barrett laid the foundations for the Federal Courts issue. We are honored and grateful that Justice Barrett will return to Notre Dame and serve as the keynote speaker of the Federal Courts issue’s symposium,” said third-year law student Aiste Zalepuga, editor-in-chief of the Notre Dame Law Review.

John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law Nicole Stelle Garnett serves as the Notre Dame Law Review’s faculty adviser.

“We are honored that Justice Barrett will participate in the symposium. Not only did she play an important role in establishing the Federal Courts Symposium, but she served for many years as adviser to the Law Review. We are delighted to welcome her home,” Garnett said.

The symposium will be Barrett’s second visit to Notre Dame Law School during the 2021-22 academic year. She returned to campus at the beginning of the fall semester to teach an intensive, one-week course on statutory interpretation to third-year law students.