Georgetown Law is on a Roll

With the onslaught of the great recession and the ascendance of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, Washington and its politics have massively expanded.

This has been good news for the regional employment, real estate and Georgetown Law School.  Although Washington’s main business of government never contracts, the growth since 2008 has few comparable eras, possibly Roosevelt’s New Deal and WWII and Johnson’s Great Society and Vietnam.

But, Bush’s War on Terror, now augmented by Obama’s Afghan surge, the 2009 stimulus, health care legislation and financial industry regulations, makes Washington the premiere education and career choice for those who want to work in government, affect public policy or plan a career in politics.

Georgetown Law not only trains many of the future attorneys who will work in the elite law firms and bill $800 to $1,000, but it will produce even more of the attorneys and policy directors who will staff and manage the White House (including the current Chief of Staff and Counsel to the President) committees on the Hill, the special and public interest groups, and think tanks that service and resist the new super state.

Location, location, location is Georgetown Law’s particular strength.  It combines one of the nation’s top law schools with a view of the U.S. Capitol and a short walk to the Supreme Court.

The health care debate highlighted the advantage Georgetown Law has from its proximity to and engagement in the legislation and the litigation dominating the nation’s policy debates.  The school provided both a forum and much of the intellectual firepower for both sides of the case.

Justice Antonin Scalia quoted in his questioning Professor Randy Barnett’s “can they make you eat broccoli” metaphor and, of course, professor and former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement argued the plaintiff’s case (26 state attorney generals, including Colorado’s John Suthers).

And the administration’s case was well-represented by Georgetown Law graduates serving on the Hill and professors who helped design the legislation.  The biggest winners were students who were able to hear numerous moot courts and panel presentations and interact with the professors.

It’s commendatory to see an institution that benefits from the growth of the super state maintain the level of intellectual diversity that can effectively argue the pros and cons of the trend – an attribute missing from some other top law schools.

See blogs:
Obama vs. Supreme Court - Who Won?
Federalism Lives