Event Detail

Constitutional law attorney Alan Gura and Duke Professor Joseph Blocher will debate the future of the Second Amendment at a meeting of Piedmont Triad Lawyers Chapter of The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. That debate will take place Monday, November 16, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. The debate will be held in the Piedmont Room at the office of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC, located at One West Fourth Street in downtown Winston-Salem. The Society will host a cocktail reception beginning at 5:00 p.m.

Alan Gura is a founding partner with the firm of Gura & Possesskey, PLLC in Alexandria, Virginia. Mr. Gura’s practice focuses primarily on constitutional law. In District of Columbia v. Heller, Gura successfully argued that portions of D.C.'s Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 violate the individual right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. Gura is lead counsel in McDonald v. Chicago which is a case that seeks to incorporate the Second Amendment against state and local governments. On September 30, 2009, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear McDonald.
 

Professor Joseph Blocher is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Duke University School of law. Professor Blocher’s academic interests include constitutional law, the First and Second Amendments, capital punishment, property, federal courts, and law and development. Prior to taking a position at the Duke University School of Law in 2009, Blocher clerked for Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Rosemary Barkett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He also practiced in the appellate group of O’Melveny & Myers, where he assisted the merits briefing for the District of Columbia in District of Columbia v. Heller.

The Federalist Society is a non-profit organization comprised of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order. It is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve individual freedom, that the separation of powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. Through its Piedmont Triad Lawyers Chapter, as well as lawyers chapters and student chapters across the country, the Society seeks to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application.

The event and reception are open to the public, and representatives of the news media are welcome.

Contact for more information:
 

Mr. Robert T. Numbers, II, (336) 721-3612
Ms. Elizabeth C. Southern, (336) 574-8038