About the Talk
Join esteemed legal scholars, Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder and Sarah Isgur, to explore Virginia's central role shaping the nation's founding.
Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky will moderate a discussion on James Madison, John Marshall, George Washington, and other founding figures, as well as their contributions to the Constitution and its legacy today. This event is cohosted with the Virginia Law Foundation to celebrate the nation's 250th birthday.
Meet the Speakers
Mary Sarah Bilder
Mary Sarah Bilder teaches at Boston College Law School in the areas of property, trusts and estates, and American legal and constitutional history. In 2016, she was named the Founders Professor of Law. Her recent scholarship focuses on the early history of the Constitution: the concept of a Framing Generation; Native Nations and the 1787 Constitution; the early constitutional status of women; written constitutionalism as a new genre; James Madison's Notes of the Convention; the history of judicial review; and colonial and founding era constitutionalism. She is currently working on a constitutional biography of Catharine Macaulay.
Bilder is the author of three books. Madison's Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention, The Transatlantic Constitution: Colonial Legal Culture and the Empire, and Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution which was a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize.
Bilder received her B.A. with Honors (English) and the Dean’s Prize from the University of Wisconsin Madison, her J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard University, and her A.M. (history) and Ph.D. from Harvard University in the history of American civilization/American studies. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Francis Murnaghan, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Sarah Isgur
Sarah Isgur is the editor of SCOTUSblog, host of the legal podcast Advisory Opinions, and a legal analyst for ABC News. Isgur has previously worked on multiple presidential campaigns and in all three branches of the federal government.
During the first Trump administration, she served in the Department of Justice as the director of the Office of Public Affairs and senior counsel to the deputy attorney general during the Russia investigation. She clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Northwestern University.
She is the author of the recently released book, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today’s Supreme Court.
About Our Partners
The Virginia Law Foundation promotes, through philanthropy, the Rule of Law, access to justice, and law-related education, while supporting attorneys through Virginia CLE.