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For the past couple of days, we’ve been in Denver, attending the 2026 Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute at Denver Law School. The program is pretty wide-ranging. Everything from very land-usey topics like state-local delegation, zoning, and takings, and broader subjects like housing policy, western history lessons, and planning strategies. In attendance: private practice lawyers, government lawyers, elected officials, public interest lawyers, legal scholars, planners, and zoning officials.
Continue Reading Sunny (And Not So Sunny) Days At The 2026 Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute

Check this out, a new cert petition filed yesterday.

As the title of this post notes, this is one of ours. So we won’t be making substantial commentary on it.

But we can say that a sharply-divided Arkansas Supreme Court held that BAS’s Tyler takings claim for the State Lands Commissioner’s failure to return

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  • Vicki Been, Judge Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law and Co-Director, Furman Center for Real Estate & Urban Policy, NYU School of Law
  • James Burling, Vice President of Legal Affairs, Pacific Legal Foundation
  • David L. Callies, Benjamin A. Kudo Professor of Law, Emeritus, Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii
  • James W. Ely, Jr., Milton R. Underwood Professor of Law, Emeritus, Professor of History, Emeritus, Vanderbilt University
  • Lee Anne Fennell, Max Pam Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
  • M. Nolan Gray, Senior Director of Legislation & Research, California YIMBY

In addition to the Friday speaking panels, on Thursday, October 23, the William and Mary Law School Real Estate Law Society (a student organization) is presenting a “re-argument” of the Supreme Court arguments in Kelo v. New London, in recognition of that case’s twentieth anniversary. Arguing for Susette Kelo will be her lawyer in the real case, the Institute for Justice. The Justices will be property law professors and eminent domain practitioners. 

Will the Moot Supreme Court reach a different outcome with the benefit of two decades of experience and hindsight? This event is open to the public, so please join us and find out! 

Continue Reading 2025 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference Speakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs5vUfddkT8u0026t=1s

Every year at this time, it seems, we realize once again that as you get older, you overlook birthdays. Time speeds up, or maybe slows down. Very Proustian.

Thus, it occurred to us only yesterday that that this blog’s “birthday” was looming and we almost let it slip by without notice.

It hardly seems

It’s not quite “Yes Virginia…” but here is our annual Independence Day missive on the legal angle on the Declaration. This may have special significance as the nation is in the process of reexamining many of our assumptions and history. But though the Founders may have been flawed individuals — as we all are — there’s really no question about the ideas they captured, and, thankfully, put down on for posterity.
Continue Reading The Verified Complaint In Equity: The Declaration Of Independence, v.249