Moritz to host Order of the Coif Distinguished Visitor, lecture

The Order of the Coif Distinguished Visitor Program will come to The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law this fall.

Formerly known as the Annual Lecture Series, the honor society selects each year authorities in legal specialties to visit law schools with established Coif chapters. The Distinguished Visitor spends two days participating in classroom lectures, meeting with faculty and student groups, and delivering an address “to stimulate discussion about important issues confronting the legal profession,” according to the society’s website.

Heather Gerken, an expert in constitutional and election law at Yale Law School, will deliver the lecture at Moritz on Oct. 17. Gerken’s work centers on election policy and reform, and she has written on campaign finance, lobbying, districting, and election administration.

Her proposal that Congress establish a “Democracy Index” – a national ranking system of state election performance – has been incorporated into bills by Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and New York Rep. Steve Israel. It has been the subject of several conferences and her new book, The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System is Failing and How to Fix It.

- Monica DeMeglio