Continuing Legal Education Programs

Now booking state bar association appearances for 2020/2021

A selection of popular CLE accredited programs

Thomas Jefferson and 200 Years of Law

Thomas Jefferson, portrayed by humanities scholar and host of The Thomas Jefferson Hour Clay Jenkinson, presents this three-hour program exploring Jefferson’s vision of an agrarian republic, his constitutional theories and practices, his life as a practicing lawyer, the fierce struggles with Hamilton and John Marshall to determine the meaning of the American Revolution, and the inevitable complications of squaring vision with eight years of presidential decision-making. 

In some cases, with all of his CLE programs, Clay (in this case Jefferson) is joined on stage by judges, lawyers, legal scholars, graduate students, and journalists for a panel discussion (or grilling!). This program has been standing-room-only at CLE seminars and State Bar Conventions!  

MCLE: This seminar may qualify for 3 hours MCLE, including 3 hours ethics.

Jefferson v. Marshall on interpretation of the Constitution

Thomas Jefferson provides preliminary comments on his distant cousin, John Marshall, “that gloomy malignity,” who served for 34 years on the Supreme Court after being nominated for that office in the last hours of the Adams administration. Jefferson makes the case for strict construction, judicial restraint, term limits for justices, and what he called a “tripartite system of judicial interpretation.” Marshall represented everything that Jefferson feared in the new Constitution, and Jefferson, for Marshall, was a state’s rights obsessive who would hamstring America’s ability to face the questions that would arise with the growth of the republic.

This program can involve a debate between Jefferson and Marshall scholars or Marshall advocates.

MCLE: This seminar may qualify for 3 hours MCLE, including 3 hours ethics.

Theodore Roosevelt and the American Century

Theodore Roosevelt discusses his varied life as a professional lawyer, naturalist, historian and explorer. Roosevelt, who served exactly 100 years after Jefferson, believed that the “constitution exists for the people, not the people for the constitution.” He believed in a greatly-expanded national government with an energetic, expansive presidency. He despised strict construction and constitutional originalism. The program explores America’s entry onto the world stage, the ways in which Roosevelt believed the 1787 Constitution prevented America from addressing the most vital problems of his time, and Roosevelt’s personal agency in helping to create the American Century. 

While in office, President Roosevelt championed conservationism, national parks, challenged monopolistic corporations as a trust buster, and authored the Square Deal for the average citizen. Jenkinson speaks as the scholar behind Roosevelt, comparing the ethical issues lawyers faced a century ago with the comparable lives attorneys lead today.

MCLE: This seminar may qualify for 3 hours MCLE, including 3 hours ethics.

Note: CLE requirements vary by state, Jenkinson will work with your state bar association to customize the content as needed to meet your state’s particular requirements.

Additional characters and topics include: 

Thomas Jefferson themes on the US Constitution and state’s rights

• Jefferson's life as a lawyer.

• Jefferson and the doctrine of revolution.

• Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence

• Jefferson v. Marshall on interpretation of the Constitution

• Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase

• Jefferson and the Press

• Jefferson and the displacement of American Indians

• Jefferson and the Tenth Amendment

• Jefferson and the wall of separation between church and state.

Meriwether Lewis themes on Native American sovereignty and American expansion

• Jefferson's Pax Americana

• The Doctrine of Discovery and its implications

• The roots of American Indian policy

• The constitutionality of the Louisiana Purchase

• The Europeanization of America

Theodore Roosevelt themes on leadership and international relations

• The Roosevelt Corollary in international relations

• Just wars

• Treatment of American Indians 1890-1930

• The American Century

• Law v. Justice (why TR got out of the law)

• Judicial recall (1910-1914)

• the coming of primaries, initiative, referendum, recall

• Roosevelt's theory of the Constitution (Hamiltonian)

• The settlement of the Russo-Japanese War

• The Brownsville Incident (African-Americans)

• Roosevelt and race

• Roosevelt and lynching

• Roosevelt and leadership

• Roosevelt and the Panama Canal

• Roosevelt and executive orders

• Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet

J. Robert Oppenheimer themes on the atomic bomb and its implications

• the decision to drop the Atomic Bomb

• the ethics of weapons of mass destruction

• the anti-Hitler bomb used against Japan

• was the bomb a difference in degree or in kind?

• the "show trial" that destroyed Oppenheimer's career

• "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds."

• race and the atomic bomb

• academic freedom and Oppenheimer

• the Chevalier Affair (natural security protocols)

• spies at Los Alamos

• Oppenheimer's opposition to the hydrogen bomb, which he considered a mere weapon of genocide

• Oppenheimer v. Teller

John Steinbeck themes on workers’ rights and distributive justice in America

• legal persecution of migrants

• who is an American?

• government detention or comfort camps?

• local perversions of justice for economic gain

• the rights of strikers

• vigilantism

• who is an American?

• the demonization of the Other

• copyright and intellectual property

• when law and ethics are at odds