Stephen E. Sachs

9–0 in favor of the plaintiffs!

www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

March:

Realized I hadn't yet posted the syllabus for my 2026 seminar on Originalism and Its Discontents. Now the rest of you can follow along at home!

stevesachs.com/syllabi/orig...

For more on the rules process, see www.uscourts.gov/forms-rules/...

Starting today! Looking forward. Send your suggestions for rules amendments to RulesCommittee_Secretary@ao.uscourts.gov

February:

Looking forward to meeting our students in tonight's Harvard Law seminar on Abortion: Law, Policy, and Ethics!

Here's the syllabus, so the rest of you can follow along at home:

stevesachs.com/syllabi/abor...

Looking forward to welcoming my students to today's Conflict of Laws class—and the rest of you can follow along with the syllabus at home:

stevesachs.com/syllabi/conf...

Taking off my weather hat for a moment for something more important than the forecast…today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I’ve shared before that my grandparents (mom’s side) are both Holocaust survivors. Please do me a favor and read their story in this thread.

Pearly, 2013–2026

Past Exams - Stephen E. Sachs Civil Procedure Conflict of Laws

(As always, my old exams are archived here: )

stevesachs.com/exams/

Congratulations to my Civil Procedure students on finishing their fall semester and starting a new one!

Now you can try the final exam for yourselves at home:

stevesachs.com/Exam_CivPro_...

And on the relationship of anti-Zionism, antisemitism, and the genocide libel:

An excerpt on the violence of the protest movement's aims: 4/

And on @ssrn.bsky.social : 3/

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Zionism and Title VI - Harvard Law Review After the attack on Israel of October 7, 2023, a new protest movement erupted on America’s campuses. Unlike the protests of previous decades, these...

Read the whole thing! 2/

harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-13...

Now published in the Harvard Law Review Forum:

"Zionism and Title VI"
harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-13...

A solicited response to Profs. @beidelson.bsky.social and Debbie Hellman on how federal civil rights laws apply to campus anti-Zionism.

A few excerpts from the introduction: 1/

I guess I'd say that, done properly, OMO approaches whatever OLO would say. :) If we want to know what the law was at time t0, and if part of that law was written law, we might look to any then-prevailing and legally relevant interpretive methods

2) My sense is that OMO tends to be defended directly on normative grounds, while OLO tends to be defended as a claim about existing law (which we might also have good reason to follow, but which we should at least report accurately). Cf journals.law.harvard.edu/jlpp/wp-cont...

I'd guess there are at least two:
1) If there were competing original methods, OLO would choose among them based on which has the better claim to having been part of the law at the time. I'm not sure, but I think different OMO theories might choose differently? Cf.:

Some related professional news! Honored to serve.

It's RULES AMENDMENTS DAY!

No Act of Congress having intervened, the amendments to the Federal Rules of Appellate, Bankruptcy, and Civil Procedure promulgated earlier this year by the Supreme Court are now in effect.

REJOICE!

December:

New amicus brief with Steve: “Sovereign immunity is for sovereigns.”

In any case, read the whole thing! Comments welcome.

www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24...

6/6

States make separate public corps for the same reasons private corps make subsidiaries: to move risks into separate baskets, w/separate debts and subject to separate judgments. If a suit isn't going to bind the State, there's no reason for immunity! 5/

TL;DR: Sovereign immunity is for sovereigns. The immunity retained at the Founding was specifically for States, not corporations; the very thing States were worried about in Chisholm was being treated like corporations!

4/

And on @ssrn.bsky.social :

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

3/

Does NJ Transit, a separate public corporation, get the same sovereign immunity as the State of New Jersey? We say no.

From the summary of argument:

2/