Upcoming Legisprudence Conference in Israel

An international conference co-sponsored by the Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law and the Knesset Legal Department, which will take place on December 10-11, 2014 in Israel, was brought to my attention by one of the participants. The conference is entitled “Legisprudence and the Legislative Process: From Theory to Practice,” and includes a number of panels that will be of great interest to legislative lawyers and parliamentary experts around the world. The agenda and list of speakers is here.

For those who don’t know, a group which included me before I googled it today, “legisprudence” is defined by Black’s Law Dictionary as “the systematic analysis of statutes within the framework of jurisprudential philosophies about the role and nature of law.”

As long as we are more or less on the subject, I recall that in 2000 the Speaker of the Knesset reached out to Speaker Hastert to inquire about how Congress received legal advice. The letter indicated that the Knesset was considering “making some changes in the structure and role of [its] legal department . . . in order to ensure a clear separation of powers between the branches of government.” (The House Counsel’s response is here.). I wonder what the Knesset’s subsequent experience has been. Anyone with feedback on this or the results of the conference would be welcome.