The Volokh Conspiracy

Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent

Have Zoom, Won't Need to Travel

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


I've done several Zoom talks on various subjects over the last several weeks (most recently to a Jewish high school in Atlanta), and much enjoyed them. They are less engaging, of course, than an in-person talk, but there's no travel time and no travel cost, so I'm much more open to such invitations than I had been to in-person speaking engagements. So far, I've done, among other things,

  • law school talks "at" Arizona, Chapman, Columbia, Duke, Illinois, Texas, and Yale,
  • talks to college classes, in places where I'd normally have a hard time traveling (such as the southernmost tip of Texas),
  • talks to high school classes, including in Alaska,
  • talks to lawyer groups, including in the Northern Mariana Islands,
  • talks to community groups, such as a local Rotary Club,
  • a conversation with a church pastor,
  • TV and radio programs, and
  • podcasts and videocasts.

I'm teaching again starting next week (I was on sabbatical this Fall), but I'll still be up for such talks then. So if you're interested, please just drop me an e-mail at volokh at law.ucla.edu. I'd also be glad to talk

  • to school assemblies and classes,
  • to homeschooling groups,
  • and to other groups as well.

I've mostly talked about free speech and about religious freedom, but I can also talk about gun rights and gun policy, Internet law, the Supreme Court, and a smattering of other topics. Please let me know if you're interested.

People sometimes ask me about honoraria, and my answer is that I'd like whatever honorarium your group customarily pays for similar events. If it doesn't normally pay an honorarium, I'll generally be glad to do it for free; I view it as part of the "service" component of a professor's job ("research / teaching / service"), and it's part that I enjoy. But if you'd like to send me a locally themed care package (three places so far have done that), especially items that I can display or eat or drink on the video, I think that makes for a fun extra connection for the audience—a little bit more like I was physically there. In any case, please let me know if some group you're involved with would be interested.