October 13th Israel on Trial: A Conversation with Judge Roy Altman

 Judge Roy K. Altman, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida, is the author of Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law (Simon & Schuster, 2025). A former federal prosecutor named "Federal Prosecutor of the Year" by the Miami-Dade Chiefs of Police, Judge Altman has brought the same rigorous, evidence-based approach from the courtroom to one of the world's most contentious geopolitical debates.

In this lunchtime program hosted by the Orange County Federalist Society, Judge Altman will discuss his new book, which applies courtroom-tested standards—burden of proof, corroboration, chain of custody—to the claims of colonialism, apartheid, and genocide frequently leveled against Israel. Drawing on historical records, archaeological evidence, genetic data, and international law, Israel on Trial asks what it means to demand proof—and what’s at stake when we stop asking for it.

Please join us as Judge Altman explores how legal rigor can bring clarity to the world's most polarizing conflict, and what the evidence actually shows when held to the standards of a courtroom.

When: Tuesday, October 13, 2026 at 11:45 a.m. (registration), 12:00 Noon (lunch)

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

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 (link coming soon).

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.

About the Speaker:

Judge Roy K. Altman is a United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Judge Altman moved to the United States shortly thereafter. He graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in 2004, where he played quarterback on the football team and pitched on the baseball team. He earned his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2007, where he served as Projects Editor for the Yale Law Journal.

Judge Altman began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Stanley Marcus of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He then served for six years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, where he prosecuted hundreds of criminal cases and tried more than 20 cases to jury verdict. In 2013, he was named “Federal Prosecutor of the Year” by the Miami-Dade Chiefs of Police and the Law Enforcement Officers’ Charitable Foundation. In 2014, Judge Altman became a partner at Podhurst Orseck in Miami, where he represented the victims of airplane crashes and bank fraud conspiracies.

On April 4, 2019, Judge Altman was confirmed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida after being nominated by President Donald Trump. At 36, he became the youngest federal district court judge in the country—and the youngest federal judge ever appointed in the Southern District of Florida. He is the author of Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law (Simon & Schuster).

Sep. 16th Annual Supreme Court Term Roundup & Preview with Professor Michael Ramsey

Join us for our annual Supreme Court roundup and term preview at Bottega Angelina on September 16 at 11:45 a.m., featuring Professor Mike Ramsey. 

Michael D. Ramsey, the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law and a leading scholar of originalism and the constitutional law of U.S. foreign affairs, will share his perspective on the 2025-26 term, and a preview of the 2026-27 term.

A former clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the Ninth Circuit and to Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court, Professor Ramsey will discuss the separation-of-powers and foreign-affairs questions he studies most closely as well as the broader doctrinal currents shaping the Court's docket. Few voices are better positioned for this than Prof. Ramsey: his scholarship was cited by the Supreme Court itself just this year in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (2026), as well as in Fuld v. Palestinian Liberation Organization (2025) and Trump v. CASA, Inc. (2025).

Please join us for what has become one of our chapter's most anticipated annual programs—a clear-eyed, insider's look at where the Supreme Court has been this term, and where it may be headed next.

When: Wednesday, September 16, 2026 at 11:45 a.m. (registration), 12:00 Noon (lunch) 

Where: Bottega Angelina, 32441 Golden Lantern St., Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

Cost:  $50/members, $65/non-members, $40/students, for lunch and 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.

About the Speaker

Michael D. Ramsey is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law, International Business Transactions, and Federal Courts, and is a leading scholar of originalism and the constitutional law of U.S. foreign affairs. He earned his A.B. from Dartmouth College (1986) and his J.D. from Stanford Law School (1989), clerking for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court before practicing international business law at Latham & Watkins and joining USD's faculty in 1995. He is the author of The Constitution's Text in Foreign Affairs (Harvard University Press, 2007) and co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge University Press, 2011), with scholarship on war powers, treaties, presidential authority, and separation of powers appearing in the Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and Georgetown Law Journal.

Professor Ramsey was named USD University Professor for 2024–25, the university's highest faculty honor, and is a two-time Thorsnes Prize winner for both teaching and scholarship; in 2021 he was appointed to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. His work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (2026), Fuld v. Palestinian Liberation Organization (2025), and Trump v. CASA, Inc. (2025). He co-founded the Originalism Blog at USD's Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism, contributes regularly to Law & Liberty, the Volokh Conspiracy, and Lawfare, and is a member of the California State Bar and the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court.

August 19th: The Climate Litigation Swindle: A Conversation with Heather Mac Donald

 Heather Mac Donald, Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal, is the author of numerous books on policing, higher education, and the progressive left—including the New York Times bestseller The War on Cops and, most recently, When Race Trumps Merit (2023). A nonpracticing attorney and Stanford Law graduate who once clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit, Mac Donald brings both legal training and relentless empirical rigor to the issues she covers.

In this lunchtime program hosted by the Orange County Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society, Mac Donald will discuss her sweeping Spring 2026 City Journal essay, "The Climate Litigation Swindle," which examines the wave of lawsuits filed by cities and states against American fossil-fuel companies for alleged climate harms. From the causal fictions underlying attribution science to the consumer-fraud theory now carrying these cases past federal preemption challenges, Mac Donald dismantles the legal and philosophical foundations of climate litigation—and explains why the Supreme Court's forthcoming review of Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County may be the last line of defense before a litigation juggernaut reaches trial.

Please join us as Mac Donald explores what happens when the Western tradition of impersonal causation gives way to redistribution dressed as tort law—and what the legal profession stands to lose if it does.

When: Wednesday, 19, 2026 at 11:45 a.m. (registration), 12:00 Noon (lunch)

Where: 1st Floor, 2040 Main Street, Irvine, CA

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.

About the Speaker:

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. A nonpracticing attorney, she graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in English, summa cum laude, and received a Mellon Fellowship to Clare College, Cambridge, where she earned an M.A. in English. She holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, after which she clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She subsequently served as an attorney-advisor in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and has testified frequently before U.S. House and Senate committees.

Mac Donald is the author of When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives (2023); The Diversity Delusion (2018); The War on Cops (2016), a New York Times bestseller; Are Cops Racist? (2010); and The Burden of Bad Ideas (2001). Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The New Criterion, among many others. She is the recipient of the 2025 Edmund Burke Award from The New Criterion and the 2005 Bradley Prize. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called her "the greatest thinker on criminal justice in America today."