A Constitutional Stress Test: COVID-19 and Religious Liberty | November 23

A Constitutional Stress Test: COVID-19 and Religious Liberty

Event Date: 11/23/2020
Event Time: 5PM-6:30PM PST
Zoom - Webinar Link and Passcode will be provided on the day of the event to all who register here

Join Pepperdine Caruso Law's Professor Michael A. Helfand and University of Virginia School of Law's Professor Micah J. Schwartzman as they debate and discuss the restrictions on religious liberty in the COVID-19 pandemic. Dean Paul Caron will moderate the event.

About the speakers:

Professor Michael Helfand
Prior to joining the Pepperdine Caruso Law faculty, Professor Helfand was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, where his practice focused on complex commercial litigation. Before entering private practice, Professor Helfand clerked for the Honorable Julia Smith Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. A frequent author and lecturer, his work considers how U.S. law treats religious law, custom and practice, focusing on the intersection of private law and religion in contexts such as religious arbitration, religious contracts and religious torts. Prof. Helfand received his J.D. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Professor Micah J. Schwartzman
Micah Schwartzman is the director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy, the Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law and a Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law. A scholar who focuses on law and religion, jurisprudence, political philosophy and constitutional law, Schwartzman joined the UVA Law faculty in 2007.

Schwartzman received his B.A. from the University of Virginia and his doctorate in politics from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. During law school, he served as articles development editor of the Virginia Law Review and received several awards, including the Margaret G. Hyde Award. After graduating, Schwartzman clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and was a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University's Society of Fellows in the Humanities.

Dean Paul Caron:
Dean Caron is one of the leading entrepreneurial tax scholars in the country. He has written over 50 books and law review articles. He is the editor of three tax journals published by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). In addition, Dean Caron is the Publisher and Editor of Tax Prof Blog, the most popular tax blog on the Internet; and the Owner and Publisher of the Law Professor Blogs Network of more than 50 blogs in other areas of law edited by law professors around the country. He was named the third most influential person in legal education by The National Jurist in 2015, and one of the 100 most influential people in tax and accounting every year since 2006 by Accounting Today. He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Florida College of Law, Florida State University College of Law, New York University/IRS Office of Chief Counsel Continuing Professional Education Program, and University of San Diego School of Law. He was named Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean of Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law on June 1, 2017. He received his LL.M. from Boston University, his J.D. from Cornell Law School, and his A.B. from Georgetown University.