Constitutional Crisis of the Trump Regime

Lecture and panel debate About the Rights of Lawyers and Law Firms in the US

Join us for a conversation about the constitutional crisis of the Trump regime. The conversation is opened with a lecture by Professor Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas (Minneapolis, Minnesota), who will be talking about the crisis and outlining the contours of several of these constitutional issues. 

Of special interest to members of the legal profession in Denmark, Professor Paulsen will focus specifically on the constitutional freedoms of USA lawyers and law firms to engage in legal representation and advocacy without government penalty or reprisal for their viewpoints, causes, clients, partners, and affiliations.  In U.S. constitutional law, these matters sound in “The First Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution:  the freedoms of speech, press, petition, and association.  These matters also impact on the legal system’s integrity and the rights of persons and institutions to legal representation and counsel. [Please see long description of his talk here]

Following the lecture, we will open the conversation with comments and questions from a panel with Chair of the Danish Bar and Law Society (Advokatrådet) Martin Lavesen, legal analyst at Kongressen.com Ruben Sindal, and Professor Helle Porsdam from the University of Copenhagen. The debate will be moderated by Associate Professor Jakob v. H. Holtermann.

Programme:

  • 15:00-15:05: Welcome by Associate Professor Jakob v. H. Holtermann
  • 15:05-15:50: lecture by Professor Michael Stokes Paulsen
  • 15:50-16:10: break
  • 16:10-17:00: panel debate with comments and questions from Chair of the Danish Bar and Law Society (Advokatrådet) Martin Lavesen, legal analyst from Kongressen.com Ruben Sindal, and Professor Helle Porsdam. Moderator: Associate Professor Jakob v. H. Holtermann.
  • 17:00-17:30: we open the floor for open questions to the panelists. I continue moderating.

Venue:

Auditorium 4A-0-69 (through the revolving door at the main entrance and on the left), KUA 3 (South Campus), University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 76, DK-2300 Copenhagen S.

About the participants:

Michael Stokes Paulsen is Distinguished University Chair and Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis. A graduate of Yale Law School—where he served as Editor of the Yale Law Journal (like later Vice President J.D. Vance) —he is one of the leading U.S. scholars of constitutional interpretation, presidential power, and law and religion. He has held visiting positions at Princeton, Stanford, Pepperdine, and Uppsala University and is a Fellow of the Hoover Institution. Professor Paulsen is the co-author of The Constitution: An Introduction (Basic Books, 2015) and numerous influential law review articles, including recent work in the Harvard and Yale Law Reviews. He is also Co-Director of the University of St. Thomas Pro-Life Advocacy Center and a frequent lecturer at major American law schools and international universities.

Martin Lavesen is Managing Partner of DLA Piper Denmark since 2017, and since 2021 Chair of the Danish Bar and Law Society (Advokatrådet), having served on the board since 2015. In that role, he leads initiatives on legal ethics, professional oversight, and ensuring integrity in the Danish legal profession.

Ruben Toft Sindahl holds law degrees from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Pittsburgh, and is admitted to practice in Washington, D.C. He has substantial experience working as a lawyer in the U.S. and now serves as a legal analyst at Kongressen.com, where he frequently writes on constitutional, political, and judicial issues. He is the author of Ret og Magt i USA, and regularly appears as a commentator and lecturer on U.S. law and democracy.

Helle Porsdam is Professor of History and Cultural Rights in the Faculties of Humanities and Law at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where she also holds the UNESCO Chair in the Right to Science. She did her PhD in American Studies at Yale University and has been a Liberal Arts Fellow twice at the Harvard Law School. In 2021, she was Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge and before that, she was a Global Ethics Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York City.

Jakob v. H. Holtermann is Associate Professor in Legal Philosophy at KU’s Center of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts). His research focuses on the philosophical foundations of law, courts and legal science, and he regularly appears as a commentator on rule of law related issues. He is responsible for the mandatory course in legal philosophy and legal sociology on KU’s BA-Program in Law.

Organizers:

Helle Porsdam (Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Law - CIS), and Jakob v. H. Holtermann (Centre of Excellence for International Courts – iCourts) – in collaboration with the Danish Bar and Law Society and Kongressen.com.

Please register via this form.