As part of the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference being held next week at the William and Mary Law School, the student-run Real Estate Law Society is producing a very interesting program that offers a look back on Kelo v. City of New London, in this that case’s twentieth year.

We’re going to be rearguing the case in a Supreme Court moot, which will feature the lawyers for Susette Kelo — the Institute for Justice — rearguing her case to see if two decades of experience produces different arguments, or even a different outcome. Any guess who will be arguing the cause for the City of New London? That’s right, none other than Yours Truly (we promise not to “take a dive” and confess error on the City’s part — this is a moot court, after all!).

Serving as Moot Justices are academics, practitioners, and law students, including Professors Donald Kochan and Shelley Saxer, Dean Brian Wall, practitioners Paul Henry and Kady Valois, and law student Tessa Wild.

Details and sponsors in this flyer.

Here’s a description of the Moot Court:

“Whether you know it or not, your house is for sale.”

In one of the Supreme Court’s most controversial decisions, Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), a bare majority of the Court allowed the government to deprive a property owner of her home merely because she was not maximizing its economic utility. The Court approved the taking of Susette Kelo’s “little pink house” by eminent domain and transferring it to another private party, on the theory that the public may benefit.  

The case generated a firestorm, exposing the public to what had been an obscure government power: eminent domain, the sovereign power to take private property for public use upon the payment of just compensation. In the two decades since Kelo burned into public consciousness, it has resulted in nationwide changes in the law, a vast body of scholarly and judicial criticism, and books and movies.

Join us as Ms. Kelo’s Supreme Court advocates from the Institute for Justice return to present her case in a re-moot of the Supreme Court arguments sponsored by the William and Mary Law School Real Estate Law Society, to ask this essential question: has time provided a new perspective on eminent domain and property rights?

Here are the merits briefs to refamiliarize yourself with the issues and arguments:

If you can’t join us in-person, the moot court will be recorded and live-streamed. Stay tuned for details.

Kelo Reargued flyer (Oct. 23, 2025)