Federalist Society
Based on Wikipedia: Federalist Society
The Student Conference That Reshaped American Law
In April 1982, two hundred people gathered at Yale Law School for a three-day symposium with an understated title: "A Symposium on Federalism: Legal and Political Ramifications." The speakers included Antonin Scalia, then a law professor who would later become one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in American history. Robert Bork was there too, the brilliant and controversial legal scholar whose failed Supreme Court nomination would become a watershed moment in judicial politics.
Nobody at that conference could have predicted what would follow.
Three law students organized the event: Steven Calabresi from Yale, Lee Liberman Otis, and David McIntosh from the University of Chicago. They had scraped together twenty-five thousand dollars from the Institute for Educational Affairs. Their goal was simple but audacious—to challenge what they saw as liberal dominance in America's elite law schools.
Politico Magazine would later call it "perhaps the most effective student conference ever." That assessment might sound hyperbolic until you consider the facts. Today, at least five of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices are current or former members of the organization that emerged from that conference: Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett. Chief Justice John Roberts once served on the steering committee of its Washington chapter, though he denies formal membership.
This is the story of the Federalist Society.
What the Federalist Society Actually Believes
The Federalist Society advocates for two related but distinct approaches to interpreting the Constitution: textualism and originalism.
Textualism means reading legal documents according to their plain meaning. If a statute says "vehicles are prohibited in the park," a textualist asks what the word "vehicle" ordinarily means, not what Congress might have intended or what policy outcome would be best. The text is the text.
Originalism goes further. It holds that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the meaning it had when it was adopted. Under this view, the Constitution doesn't evolve with the times—its meaning was fixed in 1787, or 1791 for the Bill of Rights, or 1868 for the Fourteenth Amendment. If you want the Constitution to mean something different, you amend it. You don't rely on judges to update it for you.
The opposite approach is sometimes called "living constitutionalism." Under this view, the Constitution is a framework whose meaning adapts to changing circumstances. Phrases like "cruel and unusual punishment" or "equal protection of the laws" take on new content as society's understanding evolves.
The Federalist Society takes its philosophical foundation from Federalist Paper Number 78, written by Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton argued that courts must "declare the sense of the law" rather than exercise their own will. If judges substitute their preferences for the intentions of the legislature, Hamilton warned, they become legislators themselves.
It can be of no weight to say that the courts, on the pretense of a repugnancy, may substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature.
This is the doctrine of judicial restraint: judges should interpret the law, not make it.
The Irony of the Name
The organization's logo features a silhouette of James Madison, the fourth President of the United States and principal author of the Constitution. A Securities and Exchange Commission official once called Federalist Society members "the heirs of James Madison's legacy."
There's an irony here that's worth pausing over.
Madison did help write the Federalist Papers, a collection of essays advocating for ratification of the Constitution. But Madison himself was not a member of the Federalist Party that later emerged in American politics. Quite the opposite. Madison aligned with Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans, who opposed the Federalist Party's expansive interpretation of federal power.
The historical Federalist Party, led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, favored a strong central government and loose construction of the Constitution's Commerce Clause. The Federalist Society's views are actually closer to the Anti-Federalists' concerns about federal overreach.
The name, it turns out, refers more to the general concept of federalism—the division of power between national and state governments—and to the intellectual tradition of the Federalist Papers than to the Federalist Party itself. The society particularly embraces what scholars call "New Federalism," the movement to restore greater power to state governments.
Following the Money
That initial twenty-five thousand dollars for the 1982 conference was just the beginning. The John M. Olin Foundation would eventually contribute five and a half million dollars. The Scaife Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Koch family foundations provided early support.
The donor list reads like a who's who of conservative philanthropy: Charles and David Koch, the family foundation of Richard Mellon Scaife, and the Mercer family. But it also includes some perhaps surprising names. Google has donated. So has Chevron.
By 2017, the Federalist Society had grown to twenty million dollars in annual revenue. It maintains chapters at more than two hundred law schools and has more than seventy thousand attorney members in ninety cities. The lawyers division alone is larger than most bar associations.
How It Actually Works
David Montgomery, writing in the Washington Post Magazine, offered a vivid description of the Federalist Society's structure. He called each member "akin to an excited synapse in a sprawling hive mind with no one actually in charge."
This gets at something important. The Federalist Society doesn't lobby for specific policies. It doesn't file lawsuits. It doesn't submit amicus briefs—those "friend of the court" documents that interest groups use to influence judges. It doesn't even take official positions on legal questions.
What it does is create a community.
Amanda Hollis-Brusky, a political scientist at Pomona College, describes the organization as "an interconnected network of experts with policy-relevant knowledge who share certain beliefs and work to actively transmit and translate those beliefs into policy." She argues that it has become "the de facto gatekeeper for right-of-center lawyers aspiring to government jobs and federal judgeships under Republican presidents."
Steven Teles of Johns Hopkins University, who wrote a book on the conservative legal movement, suggests that the society's influence on judicial appointments might not even be its most important function. The real power lies in what he calls a "supply-and-demand relationship between the judges and the network."
Judges need intellectual ammunition. They need scholarship extending conservative principles into new legal areas. They need new theories vetted through public debate. They need carefully selected cases that create opportunities to move the law in new directions. The Federalist Society's network of professors and practitioners fills that demand.
"Without professors and lawyers in the network filling that demand," Teles wrote, "you're not going to maximize what you got through the electoral process."
The Proving Ground
Every year, the Federalist Society holds a national lawyers convention in Washington, D.C. It's one of the highest-profile conservative legal events of the year, but the guest list might surprise you.
Nadine Strossen, the former head of the American Civil Liberties Union—an organization that conservatives often view as an adversary—has spoken there. So has Neil Eggleston, who served as White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. The society deliberately invites what it calls "capable liberal advocates to try to rebut conservative perspectives."
This isn't just good public relations. It serves a strategic function. The Washington Post Magazine noted that "society events provide the proving ground where they hone their arguments, seize a chance to shine and come to the attention of mentors higher up in the political-legal hierarchy."
In this sense, the Federalist Society functions as both a talent network and a placement agency. Young conservative lawyers demonstrate their abilities, attract mentors, and climb the hierarchy. The most promising eventually find themselves on shortlists for federal judgeships.
The Trump Years
During Donald Trump's first term as president, the Federalist Society's influence reached its apex. The organization vetted Trump's list of potential Supreme Court nominees. When journalists analyzed Trump's appellate court appointments in March 2020, they found that forty-three out of fifty-one nominees were current or former members of the society.
A 2008 academic study had already documented what many suspected: Federalist Society members appointed by Republican administrations to the Courts of Appeals had more conservative voting records than non-members. Membership had become, in the words of Professor Lawrence Baum, "a proxy for adherence to conservative ideology."
The society's 2024 annual gala took place shortly after Trump's election to a second presidential term. The featured event was a conversation between Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee and Federalist Society member, and Justice Stephen Breyer, a Clinton appointee generally considered part of the Court's liberal wing. The two jurists delivered a joint message: the Supreme Court is a collegial body whose independence must be protected.
The pairing itself told a story about how the Federalist Society wants to be seen—as an organization committed to legal principles, not partisan outcomes.
The Critics Respond
Not everyone buys this framing.
Some critics accuse the organization of practicing judicial activism while preaching judicial restraint. They point out that many Federalist Society members supported overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion. Roe was finally overturned in 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization—a case decided by a Court that included five justices with Federalist Society connections.
Members of the Federalist Society presented oral arguments in every single abortion case that came before the Supreme Court from 1992 until Roe's demise.
Liberal critics raise a pointed question: isn't it convenient that originalism so often produces conservative results? When the Constitution's original meaning supports conservative outcomes, originalists invoke it. When it might support progressive outcomes—say, in areas like affirmative action or executive power—the methodology seems to yield more flexible results.
Leonard Leo, the former executive vice president who became the society's most influential figure, disputes this characterization. "You're practicing originalism appropriately when you're doing so without looking behind the curtain and trying to predetermine results," he told the Washington Post Magazine.
Interestingly, a growing number of liberal legal scholars have taken up the challenge. They've begun developing originalist arguments for progressive positions, trying to show that the methodology doesn't inherently favor conservative outcomes. This liberal originalism has started appearing in legal briefs and even in Supreme Court dissents.
The Question of Partisanship
The Federalist Society insists it's a nonpartisan organization dedicated to ideas, not political outcomes. Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General who argued Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court, pointed out that in thirty-seven years, the organization has "never filed a lawsuit or brief in any litigation" and has never "passed any resolution advocating for or against any legal issue."
But political scientists Amanda Hollis-Brusky and Calvin TerBeek have uncovered documents from 1984 in which the organization told donors that one of its missions was pushing conservative positions. They argue that the nonpartisan label doesn't match the reality.
Perhaps the most accurate description comes from the Washington Post Magazine: the Federalist Society "provides the enduring climate within which storms on the right come and go." Individual members are often political and ideological warriors. The organization itself stays above the fray, providing intellectual infrastructure while avoiding the messiness of specific political battles.
The Liberal Response
In 2001, liberals tried to build their own version. The American Constitution Society was explicitly founded as a progressive counterpart to the Federalist Society. It has grown substantially but hasn't achieved comparable influence over judicial appointments or legal culture.
In January 2020, the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States—the policy-making body for the federal courts—considered a remarkable proposal. It circulated a draft advisory opinion that would bar federal judges from belonging to either the Federalist Society or the American Constitution Society.
The proposal treated both organizations as ideological advocacy groups whose membership was incompatible with judicial impartiality. Membership in the American Bar Association would still be permitted. The restriction would only apply to formal membership; judges could still speak at events, participate in panel discussions, and attend conferences.
The proposal generated intense debate during a 120-day comment period. It highlighted a fundamental tension: are these organizations scholarly forums for legal debate, or are they ideological factions that compromise judicial independence?
Beyond the Courts
The Federalist Society has expanded beyond judicial philosophy. Its Regulatory Transparency Project examines government regulations across twelve policy areas, issuing white papers and hosting events. The project's stated goal, according to National Review, is to "foster a nationwide conversation about areas where the costs of regulation exceed any benefits."
Members have argued that specific regulations must be enacted by legislatures rather than by courts or executive agencies interpreting existing statutes. This position has implications for everything from environmental protection to workplace safety to financial regulation.
The society has also been active on questions of race and civil rights. Members argued in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 that courts should not consider race when evaluating policies, even policies designed to promote integration. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down voluntary desegregation plans in that case.
The Long Game
What makes the Federalist Society remarkable isn't any single victory. It's the patient, decades-long project of building intellectual infrastructure.
When those three law students organized their conference in 1982, elite law schools were dominated by liberal faculty and liberal ideas. Conservative students felt isolated. The Federalist Society gave them community, legitimacy, and a career path.
The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, a respected academic publication, became the society's official journal. Membership came with a subscription. Ideas generated within the network gained scholarly credibility.
Young conservatives who joined as law students rose through the ranks. They clerked for sympathetic judges. They joined prestigious law firms. They took positions in Republican administrations. Eventually, some became judges themselves. A few made it to the Supreme Court.
Leonard Leo has said he endorses "the network theory of the society." As he put it: "It's less about who gets what job and more about building a community that can be self-perpetuating and self-sustaining and self-driving."
That community now includes more than seventy thousand attorneys, two hundred law school chapters, and a pipeline that runs from first-year law student to Supreme Court justice. It has shifted not just who becomes a judge, but what ideas those judges consider legitimate.
The Washington Post Magazine concluded that "Much of the Federalist Society's influence comes not from its very public Washington victories but from its behind-the-scenes, grass-roots ability to shift the law at the idea level, even the cultural level."
Forty years after that student conference at Yale, the organization those students founded has fundamentally changed American law. Whether you view that change as a restoration of constitutional principles or an ideological takeover of the judiciary depends largely on your own legal philosophy.
But the change itself is undeniable.