we're now going to hear from alan morrison to wrap things up in our first round. alan is the learner family associate dean for public interest and public service law and professorial lecturer in law at the george washington university law school. he received his undergraduate degree from yale college and law degree from harvard law school. he served as a commissioned officer in the u.s. navy, his early legal career includes working as anattorney, and as an assistant u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york. in 2004, alan retired from public citizen to work at stanford law school as a senior leurer on administrave and public interest law. he's taught at several law schools including harvard, american university, new york university, tu lane university, and china's fudan university. alan teamed up with ralph nader in 1972 to found and direct the public citizen litigation group, the litigation arm of the consumer advocacy group public citizen. over the span of his career, he has argued 20 cases before the united states supreme court. please welcome alan morr

we're going to now hear from alan morrison to wrap things up in the first round. alan is the learner family and professor lecturer in law at the george washington university law school. he received his undergraduate degree from yale college and his law degree from harvard. in between his studied he served as a commissioned officer in the u.s. navy. his early legal career includes working as an attorney of cleary, and as an assistant u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york. in 2004, alan retired from public citizen to work at stanford law school as a senior lecturer. he's taught at several law schools includes harvard, new york, tulane, and china's fudan university. alan teamed up with a ralph nader to form the litigate of the consumer advocacy group. other the span of his career, he has argued 20 cases before the united states supreme court. please welcome alan morrison. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. couple of preliminary matters. i first came to the program at cato institute in somewhat less adjust surroundings as this. i recall the institute was

the other short point i want to make is in response to alan morrison's comments about the standard of review. for those of you who aren't lawyers and aren't familiar with this, the standard of review is basically a formula that courts use to express how much deference is given to legislatures when reviewing the constitutionality of various challenged laws. and they've developed a whole kind of hierarchy of standards of review. the lowest one -- the highest one is strict scrutiny. the lowest one, the one that gives the most deference to legislation is rational basis. then they have rational basis with bite, and one with two and a half bites. that's a joke. and intermediate scrutiny and all of this stuff. members of the supreme court on both sides of the ideological divide have said for a long time that these formulas don't really tell you how cases are decided. they're used to justify decisions made on other grounds. there's a lot of evidence to support that. my favorite is the groeder decision involving affirmative action at the university of michigan law school, where they purported

we're now going to hear from alan morrison to wrap things up in our first round. alan is the learner family associate dean for public interest and public service law and professorial lecturer in law at the george washington university law school. he received his undergraduate degree from yale college and law degree from harvard law school. he served as a commissioned officer in the u.s. navy, his early legal career includes working as an attorney, and as an assistant u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york. in 2004, alan retired from public citizen to work at stanford law school as a senior lecturer on administrative and public interest law. he's taught at several law schools including harvard, american university, new york university, tu lane university, and china's fudan university. alan teamed up with ralph nader in 1972 to found and direct the public citizen litigation group, the litigation arm of the consumer advocacy group public citizen. over the span of his career, he has argued 20 cases before the united states supreme court. please welcome alan

please welcome alan morrison. [ applause ] >> thank you. a couple of preliminary matters. first, i first came to a program at the cato institute in somewhat less august surroundings than this. as i recall, the institute was in the basement of a small townhouse on 2nd street southeast. and i was there because i, like the people at the cato institute, believed that many of the restrictions then and still today as to the unauthorized practice of law harmed consumers by creating artificial barriers to the delivery of low-cost services to people who could not afford to have lawyers. i was proud to be there then, and i'm pleased and proud to be here today. the second point that needs to be made is, you wondered why am i here. besides the fact that i was invited. i'm here because, for a brief period of time after i left stanford, i worked at the toeyenal oicfo th stctf cuma,nd i s heduleto arguehe heeras i in fact had been significantly involved in writing the brief in the heller case, opinion as to the respective roles of the mayors, counsels and attorney general, and she sensib