“The James Wilson Institute's work is truly transformational. In a legal environment driven by morally sterile conversation, our seminar gave us a moral vocabulary to meet the challenges of our day.” Vincent G. Schiffiano, University of Kansas Law School.

Spring was a busy season for the James Wilson Institute, as we once again brought our introductory seminars on Natural Law Jurisprudence to students at top law schools across the nation. For the first time, JWI visited four campuses in one semester. Uniting our JWI scholars with the next generation of soon-to-be lawyers, these weekend primers introduced students to the moral foundations of the American constitutional order where they are often needed most. Students engage with JWI scholars, debate one another, steep themselves in rich prose, and receive guidance on how to integrate what we call a "Natural Law lens" through which to view American law into their future careers.

JWI kicked off its spring law school seminars in February by hosting a seminar for the first time at Penn Law, led by our Founder and Co-Director Hadley Arkes and Executive Director Garrett Snedeker. This seminar was especially memorable since Penn Law was founded by our namesake James Wilson. After the seminar, students treated JWI's team to a tour of the campus’s James Wilson exhibit in the law library.

In one of our most well-attended seminars, JWI convened over twenty-five students from multiple law schools in March across the D.C.-area including Catholic University, Georgetown, the Scalia Law School at George Mason, and George Washington. Students enjoyed kindling new friendships over conversation on Natural Law and the Constitution.

Attendees left the weekend educated and refreshed. As one student shared, “This JWI seminar threw me into the heat of the Natural Law legal debate. If you want to understand more about the arguments and ideas underpinning Natural Law efforts, this is the right place. Getting to speak with other law students and hear their thoughts, as well as listen to Professor Arkes and his thoughtful wisdom, made this experience valuable, memorable, and practicable.”

In late March, Co-Director Gerry Bradley and Snedeker led a seminar for the students at the University of Kansas Law School and Washburn Law, JWI's first seminar in Kansas. The seminar explored the moral foundations of the American legal system through four enlightening sessions. 

Students testified to the rigor and intellectual richness of the program. “This seminar has been the best application of philosophy to law that I have seen in my time at law school,” said Keith Marshall, “I wish there were more programs like this that wrestled with the reasons why the law exists and why we practice it.”

Another student, Jeffrey Schemmer, also shared his positive experience, saying “Law school curriculums across America teach students to blindly accept legal positivism and reject the role of moral reasoning in the legal profession. The James Wilson Institute not only teaches students how to use natural law reasoning as future attorneys but also how this approach to the law is firmly grounded in the American legal tradition and classical political theory.”

The last law school seminar of the semester was held at the University of Chicago in early April. Featuring Senior Fellow Justin Dyer and Garrett Snedeker, the weekend offered courses on the classical and Christian roots of the Founding, departmentalism, theology, and the “moral turn” of natural law in conservative jurisprudence. JWI was pleased to return to Chicago for the third time since 2018.