March 1 Cutler Lecture to Explore the Question "Do We Have a Written Constitution?"
The Law School's 2006-06 Cutler Lecture will be presented by University of Chicago Law Professor David A. Strauss on Thursday, March 1. 
David A. Strauss, Harry N. Wyatt Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, will present the 2006-07 Cutler Lecture on Thursday, March 1, at 3:30 PM in room 124 of the William & Mary Law School. His lecture, titled “Do We Have a Written Constitution?,” is free and all are welcome.
The Constitution of the United States is a document that was drafted in 1787 and has been amended a number of times since. The United States is distinctive — and, for a time, was unique in the world — in having a written constitution. But, asks Professor Strauss, does the written Constitution really have that much to do with American constitutional law? Or is American constitutional law more of a common law system, in which precedents and traditions are more important than the document itself? And if that is our system, is it a good one?
Professor Strauss has published many scholarly articles, principally on subjects in constitutional law, and is working on a book on constitutional interpretation. He is co-editor of the Supreme Court Review and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Strauss has served as Special Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and Assistant Solicitor General of the United States, and has argued eighteen cases before the Supreme Court. He is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford, and Harvard Law School.
The Culter Lecture series was established in 1927 by James Gould Cutler of Rochester, NY, to provide an annual lecture at William & Mary by “an outstanding authority on the Constitution of the United States.” The original series of 16 lectures were held from 1928 to 1944. After a period of dormancy, the Cutler lectures were revived in 1980-81 under the auspices of the Law School, with each lecture published in the William and Mary Law Review.
For more information, contact the Law School’s Communication Office at 757-221-1840 (lawcom@wm.edu).
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