Defeating the Deceits and Deficits of Legal Education: Some Provocative Proposals

Legal education is in crisis, largely due to deficits and even deceits in the classroom and curricula—states are pushing back against the ABA and its woke curricula. Yet, the "supreme law of the land" remains— what can be done?  How can legal education be refined to faithfully reflect that "It is a constitution we are expounding”?  How can legal education become more aligned with the oath administered to every lawyer and judge?  

Please join us as we host Dr. Jeffery Ventrella, former Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), to discuss. 

When: Thursday, December 4, 2025  at 11:45 a.m. (registration), 12:00 Noon (lunch)

Where: First Floor Conference Room, 2040 Main Street, 1st Floor, Irvine, CA.
(Please validate your parking ticket in the lobby before or after entering the venue.)

Cost: $30/members, $35/non-members, $20/students, for lunch and 1 hour of MCLE credit (the Federalist Society is a California State Bar approved provider of MCLE).

RSVP and Pay: To RSVP and pay by credit card, please visit the Federalist Society event page here.

To pay by cash or check at the door, please send an RSVP to Tim Kowal at OCFedSocPresident@gmail.com and make checks payable to “The Federalist Society.”

*** Please email us if you have any dietary concerns. ***

Dr. Jeffery Ventrella directs its Center for Public Legal Theology and teaches constitutional law and jurisprudence. Following a successful career as a “partner” serving clients in “Big Law” for 15 years, Dr. Ventrella then served for nearly 23 years as Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs and Training at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), including serving on ADF’s Executive Team for many years.

After joining ADF in 2000, he designed and developed the curriculum for a number of ADF training programs, including the Blackstone Legal Fellowship (BLF), and ADF International’s Areté Academy Europe, Areté Academy Asia, and Areté Academy Latin America.

As an approved speaker for the Federalist Society, he serves as an appointed member of the society’s executive committee – guiding its Religious Liberties Practice Group. Dr. Ventrella is also an elected member of The Philadelphia Society.

He is the author of numerous published monographs, law review articles, and has authored, contributed to and/or edited about thirteen books.

Dr. Ventrella received a bachelor’s degree in music education, magna cum laude, from the University of Northern Colorado, where he specialized in trumpet performance. He holds a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in church and state studies from Whitefield Theological Seminary and earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of California Hastings College of the Law, where he served as Production Editor of the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly.

He has practiced law since 1985 and is a member of the state bar of Idaho serving on its Professionalism & Ethics Section as well as its Diversity Section. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Married since 1986, he and his wife enjoy their five adult children and one granddaughter.

The Declaration at 250 with Donald Kochan: The Role of the Declaration of Independence in an Originalist Constitutional Interpretation

The Orange County Federalist Society is pleased to host Professor Donald J. Kochan, Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, for a timely address marking America’s 250th anniversary: “The Declaration at 250: The Role of the Declaration of Independence in an Originalist Constitutional Interpretation.”

In his characteristically rigorous and accessible style, Professor Kochan will explore how the Declaration of Independence informs constitutional meaning, what that history implies for modern governance, and where law-and-economics insights illuminate the founding era’s design. Drawing on current debates and longstanding principles, his talk will examine:

• How the Declaration’s text and structure guide an originalist approach to constitutional interpretation
• The relationship between founding-era political economy and limited government
• Practical implications for courts, legislatures, and the separation of powers today

Join us for this lively and wide-ranging conversation about the legal and civic foundations of the American experiment—and what lawyers, students, and citizens can do to preserve a constitutional order worthy of 1776.

When: Thursday, October 9, 2025, 11:45 a.m. (registration), 12:00 Noon (lunch and program)

Where: Second Floor Conference Room, 2040 Main Street, 2nd Floor, Irvine, CA

(Please validate your parking ticket in the lobby before or after entering the venue.)

(If applicable: Please validate your parking ticket in the lobby before or after entering the venue.)

Cost: $30/members, $35/non-members, $20/students. Includes lunch and 1 hour of MCLE credit (The Federalist Society is a California State Bar–approved MCLE provider).

RSVP and Pay: To RSVP and pay by credit card, please visit the Federalist Society event page here.

To pay by cash or check at the door, please RSVP to Tim Kowal at OCFedSocPresident@gmail.com

 and make checks payable to “The Federalist Society.”

**Please email us if you have any dietary concerns.**

Donald Kochan is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center (LEC). Before joining the Antonin Scalia Law School faculty, he was the Parker S. Kennedy Professor in Law at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law from 2004 to 2020. From 2003 to 2004, Professor Kochan was an Olin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. During 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.

Professor Kochan’s scholarship focuses on areas of property law, constitutional law, administrative law, natural resources and environmental law, tort law, and law & economics. He has published more than 40 scholarly articles and essays in well-regarded law journals, and his work has been cited in dozens of books and in hundreds of published law review articles. Professor Kochan is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI); and, he was appointed by ALI in July 2016 to serve as an Adviser to the Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property project. Professor Kochan is a Nonresident Scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a Visiting Scholar in residence during Fall 2018.

Professor Kochan received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics and managing editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. During law school, he also served as editor and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy symposium issues in 1997 and 1998. He received his BA from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude, with majors in both political science and philosophy, where he studied as the John W. Gill Medallion Scholar and was honored as the Presidential Scholar (awarded to the top graduate in the political science department). After graduating from law school, Professor Kochan was a law clerk to The Honorable Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Kochan was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in natural resources & environmental law as well as tort, products, and consumer civil litigation & legislative affairs.

Sep. 26, 2025: Heather Mac Donald on Law, Order, and Los Angeles

The Orange County Federalist Society is pleased to host Heather Mac Donald, acclaimed author and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, for a timely discussion on the breakdown of law and order in California and what the recent unrest in Los Angeles reveals about the state’s political and cultural dysfunction.

In her signature analytical style, Mac Donald will examine how state and local leadership have undermined constitutional governance by tolerating lawlessness, prioritizing ideological agendas over public safety, and promoting policies that reward contempt for American principles. Drawing on current headlines and longstanding patterns, her talk will explore:

• The significance of the June illegal immigration riots in Los Angeles
• How California's leadership narrative enables social and legal decay
• Broader implications for federalism, citizenship, and the rule of law

Join us for this bold and wide-ranging conversation about the legal, political, and cultural forces reshaping California—and what citizens and legal professionals can do to restore constitutional order.

When: Friday, September 26, 2025, 11:45 a.m. (registration) 12:00 Noon (lunch and program)

Where: First Floor Conference Room, 2040 Main Street, 1st Floor, Irvine, CA

(Please validate your parking ticket in the lobby before or after entering the venue.)

Cost: $30/members, $35/non-members, $20/students Includes lunch and 1 hour of MCLE credit (The Federalist Society is a California State Bar approved provider of MCLE.)

RSVP and Pay: To RSVP and pay by credit card, please visit the Federalist Society event page here. 

To pay by cash or check at the door, please RSVP to Tim Kowal at OCFedSocPresident@gmail.com and make checks payable to “The Federalist Society.”

**Please email us if you have any dietary concerns.**

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She is also a New York Times bestselling author, and has received numerous honors including the 2005 Bradley Prize and the 2025 Edmund Burke Award for her contributions to culture and public discourse 

Mac Donald has authored several influential books, including:

• When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives (2023) 
• The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (2018) 
• The War on Cops (2016), a New York Times bestseller 
• Previous works such as Are Cops Racist? (2010), The Immigration Solution (2007; coauthored), and The Burden of Bad Ideas (2001) 

Her writing has appeared in numerous leading publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and The New Criterion 

A nonpracticing lawyer, Mac Donald clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She also served as an attorney-advisor in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the General Counsel, as a volunteer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and testified before U.S. House and Senate Committees on criminal justice and immigration matters 

Mac Donald holds a B.A. in English from Yale University (summa cum laude), earned an M.A. in English as a Yale Mellon Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge, and received a J.D. from Stanford Law School