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Alumni, students, supporters, and community members are invited to the University of Colorado Law School's thought-provoking series, Colorado Law Talks. Featuring our faculty and other members of the Colorado Law community, each talk provides an opportunity to hear about the lecturers' current scholarship and to discuss the questions and ideas that motivate, influence, and shape their work.
The work of Colorado Law’s professors includes an extraordinary array of diverse projects—not just intriguing scholarship, but innovative teaching methods, and valuable contributions to communities beyond the law school. Colorado Law Talks allows us to share some of these projects with you, providing an important opportunity for Colorado Law and the legal community to engage with ideas and with one another.
Colorado Law Talks are held several times each semester at various locations in Denver and are open to the public.
Upcoming Talks

Privacy at the Margins (Webinar)
Wednesday, November 11, 2020 | 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. MST
Scott Skinner-Thompson, Associate Professor of Law
In this talk, Professor Skinner-Thompson will draw from his new book, Privacy at the Margins, to explain how privacy can serve as a form of expressive resistance to government and corporate surveillance regimes. Limited legal protections for privacy leave minority communities vulnerable to concrete injuries and violence when their information is exposed. Professor Skinner-Thompson will demonstrate why efforts undertaken by vulnerable groups, including queer folks, women, and racial and religious minorities, to protect their privacy should be entitled to constitutional protection under the First Amendment and related equality provisions. By examining the ways even limited privacy can enrich and enhance our lives at the margins in material ways, Professor Skinner-Thompson will show how privacy can be transformed into an anti-subordination legal tool.
One general CLE credit pending for Colorado attorneys.
Watch Previous Colorado Law Talks
Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era
Ming Hsu Chen, Associate Professor of Law
In this talk, Professor Ming Hsu Chen elaborated on the concept of pursuing citizenship by drawing on her newly released book, Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era (Stanford University Press 2020). Her talk included stories based on interviews with 100+ immigrants in Colorado and proposals in light of the contemporary immigration policy context.
The Roles and Rights of Essential Food System Workers During COVID-19
Alexia Brunet Marks, Associate Professor of Law
The global spread of COVID-19 exposed many vulnerabilities in our food system. While some consumers experienced food shortages, others felt heightened levels of food insecurity. And yet, as federal, state and local programs were re-worked and legislation passed to keep our food supplies intact, less attention has focused on the role of the essential food system workers (the farmers and food processors, among others) who have kept us fed. In this Colorado Law Talk, Professor Alexia Brunet Marks combined stories of essential workers with necessary reforms, driven by her work on the Colorado COVID Food Systems Rapid Response Team.
Leadership in a Time of Crisis
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser
The COVID-19 crisis has raised public health, economic, and institutional challenges for our state and nation. In this talk, Colorado Attorney General and former Colorado Law Dean Phil Weiser discussed the nature of these challenges and what lasting changes will come from this crisis. In particular, he discussed the need for greater resilience and grace in our society. He also discussed how our commitment to federalism as a system of governance serves us during these challenging times.
Cases Every Business Lawyer Should Know
Mark J. Loewenstein, Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs and Monfort Professor of Commercial Law
In this talk, Professor Loewenstein led a discussion about cases every business lawyer should know. He covered essential case law around the country related to limited liability companies, corporations, and partnerships. These cases raise issues that come up frequently in a business law practice and, for the most part, the cases reflect recent treatment of those issues. Not all cases are well-known, yet they are important to understand.
Wrongful Convictions
Ann England, Clinical Professor of Law, and Anne-Marie Moyes, Director of the Korey Wise Innocence Project
National Injunctions- Judges Gone Wild or Just Doing Their Jobs?
Suzette Malveaux, Provost Professor of Civil Rights Law and Director of the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law
Professor Suzette Malveaux engaged in an important and timely conversation about the appropriateness of national injunctions (federal court orders that have halted Administration policies nationwide). Have judges gone wild or are they just doing their jobs? Administrations on both sides of the aisle have had their signature policies compromised by national injunctions that touch issues central to our lives—from environmental protection to civil rights to immigration. This talk explored the advantages and disadvantages of this powerful legal remedy, and its particular salience as a check-and-balance on government power when democracy is under siege.This Colorado Law CLE was made possible through the generous sponsorship of Polsinelli LLP.
Armistice in the War on Cannabis—Where We Are and Need to Go
Richard Collins, Professor of Law
Colorado was first to allow the sale of recreational marijuana to adults. The plan was based on an analogy to alcohol regulation, but five years in, we are still a long way from a match with alcohol laws. Federal regulation is a big reason why, but Colorado can do more. Will this year's legislative session move us closer? Join us for the second lecture of the 2019 Colorado Law Talks series, where Professor Collins will discuss all this and more.
Thank you to our host Vicente Sederberg LLC .
Bringing an Innovative Mindset to the Attorney General's Office
Phil Weiser, Colorado Attorney General
The Laws of Attraction: The Shifting Meaning of Sexual Consent
Aya Gruber, Professor of Law
The slogans are ubiquitous: "Only 'Yes' Means 'Yes'"; "Got Consent?"; "Consent is Hot, Assault is Not!" Clear consent is the rule, but the meaning of sexual consent is far from clear. The current state of confusion is evident in the numerous competing views about what constitutes mental agreement (grudging acceptance or eager desire?) and what comprises performative consent (passive acquiescence or an enthusiastic "yes"?). In the final lecture of the 2018 Colorado Law Talks series, Gruber will seek to clear up the consent confusion and chart the contours of the sexual consent framework, categorizing different definitions of affirmative consent, and critically describing arguments for and against affirmative consent. Examining the consent framework and the affirmative consent debate reveals exactly what is at stake in this new world of reform—a revelation necessary for meaningful dialogue on acceptable sex and acceptable sex regulation.
Gruber's forthcoming book, The Feminist War on Crime, is under contract with the University of California Press.
Reviving America's Human Rights Movement
Anna Spain Bradley, Associate Professor of Law and Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity
The Next Financial Crisis
Erik Gerding, Professor of Law
Securities Crowdfunding
Andrew Schwartz, Professor of Law
In this talk, Schwartz explored the nascent field of securities crowdfunding, discussing the policy goals behind this new form of capital raising and comparing the different models followed in different jurisdictions.
This Colorado Law CLE was made possible through the generous sponsorship of Akerman, LLP.
Previous Colorado Law Talks
Since the series began in February 2017, Colorado Law Talks has engaged audiences on a variety of topics:
- The Laws of Attraction: The Shifting Meaning of Sexual Consent, Professor Aya Gruber
- Reviving America's Human Rights Movement, Associate Professor Anna Spain Bradley
- Every Red a Criminal: the Law, the War on Radical Unions, and the Decline of the American Left; Professor Ahmed White
- The Government's Speech and the Constitution, Professor Helen Norton
- The Next Financial Crisis, Professor Erik Gerding
- Fascism and the Liberal State, Professor Pierre Schlag
- Unpresidented: Executive Power in the Trump Administration, Professor Hal Bruff
- The Law of the River, Professor Sarah Krakoff