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 

Sep. 4, 2025 Lawyer & Law Student Mixer With Chapman & UCI Law Schools

The Orange County Federalist Society is pleased to host a special Lawyer & Law Student Mixer, bringing together members of the legal community and students from Chapman and UCI Law Schools for an evening of fellowship and conversation.

This informal networking event provides a unique opportunity for law students to connect with practicing attorneys, judges, and legal scholars, while strengthening ties across law schools and the broader Federalist Society community in Orange County.

Whether you're beginning your legal journey or have years of courtroom experience, this mixer offers the chance to:

• Build lasting professional relationships
• Share ideas across generations of legal minds
• Learn how the Federalist Society continues to support liberty, the rule of law, and constitutional government

When: Thursday, September 4, 2025 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Where: Lucille’s Smokehouse BBQ, 2550 Park Ave Tustin, CA 92782

Cost: Free to attend. (Food and drink available for purchase.)

Further event details may be posted on the OC Federalist Society event page (link coming soon).

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

About the Event:

Please join the Orange County Federalist Society for an informal mixer bringing together lawyers, law students, and faculty from Chapman and UCI Law Schools. This event is a great opportunity for students to network with practicing attorneys, and for practitioners to meet the next generation of legal minds.

All Federalist Society members, alumni, and supporters are welcome. Casual attire.

Sep. 10, 2025 Ilya Shapiro on Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites

The Orange County Federalist Society is pleased to host Ilya Shapiro, renowned constitutional scholar and Director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute, for a discussion of his new book, Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites.

In Lawless, Shapiro offers a powerful critique of how America’s legal and academic institutions have drifted from their constitutional moorings. Drawing on his own experiences and research, he explains how elite law schools, the legal profession, and the judiciary have embraced ideology over principle—often at the expense of liberty, the rule of law, and intellectual diversity.

Shapiro will explore urgent questions:

• How did our top institutions become unmoored from constitutional principles?
• What role has legal education played in reshaping America’s elites?
• What can lawyers, students, and citizens do to restore fidelity to the Constitution and the promise of self-government?
• “What ethical responsibilities do attorneys have in confronting ideological pressures in law schools, courts, and the profession?
• “How can lawyers maintain professional independence and candor when institutions push ideological conformity?”

Join us for this timely and thought-provoking conversation about law, education, and the future of constitutional governance.

When: Wednesday, September 10, 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. 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. ***

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute, director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, and publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.

Shapiro is the author of Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? Hobby Lobby, the Affordable Care Act, and the Constitution (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets and once appeared on the Colbert Report.

Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/​adviser to the Multi-​National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.