Julius Rosenthal Foundation Lecture Series

The Julius Rosenthal Foundation was established in 1919 in memory of Julius Rosenthal (1827-1905), an eminent and beloved member of the Chicago Bar. One of the principal programs supported by the foundation is the Rosenthal Lecture Series, which has assumed a preeminent position among distinguished lecture programs in the legal world. Publication of the lectures has made a notable contribution to legal literature and scholarship for more than 70 years.

Many distinguished academic and legal scholars have delivered Rosenthal lectures including Sir William Searle Holdsworth, Vinerian Professor of Law, Oxford University, who, in 1927, delivered the first lecture titled "Some Lessons from Our Legal History."

Speakers and lectures include, among others:

2008 Robert C. Post, David Boies Professor of Law, Yale University

2007 Samuel Issacharoff, Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University, and Pamela S. Karlan, Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law, Stanford, “Law of Democracy”

2006 John J. Donohue, Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law, Yale University

2005 Michael Walzer, UPS Foundation Professor, Institute for Advanced Study, "The Paradox of National Liberation"

2004 Stephen L. Carter, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Yale University, "Inconvenient Lives: Just War Theory, Nationalism, and the Rhetoric of Killing"

2003 Danielle S. Allen, Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures, Political Science, and the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, "Talking to Strangers"

2002 Garry Wills, Adjunct Professor of History, Northwestern University, "President Jefferson and the Slave Power"

2001 Hilary Putnam, Cogan University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University, "The Collapse of the Fact-Value Dichotomy"

1998 Amartya Kumar Sen, Lamont University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University; master of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, "The Domain of Justice"

1986 Mary Ann Glendon, professor of law, Harvard University, "Abortion and Divorce in Western Law"

1971 Arthur J. Goldberg, former justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and former ambassador to the United Nations, "Equal Justice: The Warren Era of the Supreme Court"

1960 Rt. Hon. Lord Radcliff, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary of the United Kingdom, "The Law and Its Compass"

1948 Adlai E. Stevenson, United States delegate (1946-47), United Nations General Assembly, "International Relations and International Law"