“The Capacity and the Duty” ft. Stanford University’s Michael W. McConnell I Saturdays at Seven Ep. 47 (The Legal Vocation: Part Four of a Six Part Series)

In the forty-seventh episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Michael W. McConnell, the Richard and Mallery Francis Professor of Law, Director of the Constitutional Law Center, and Senior Fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. McConnell starts by offering details concerning how his preparation for the sixteen cases he argued to date before the Supreme Court differs from his preparation for the cases he argued before other appellate courts. Ream and McConnell then discuss how McConnell’s calling to the study and practice of law emerged and how clerking for Skelly Wright with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for William Brennan with the United States Supreme Court impacted McConnell’s vocation as a legal scholar. Their conversation then shifts to McConnell’s most recent book (co-authored with Nathan Chapman), Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience (Oxford University Press, 2023), cases McConnell argued concerning the Establishment Clause, and how the views of the courts—especially the Supreme Court—changed over time concerning this critical component of the Constitution. Ream and McConnell then close by discussing McConnell’s understanding of the academic vocation and how the his service to his students is still what he values the most.