The Founders Project:
The Founders Project, housed at the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, works to connect the formal world of constrained and formalistic legal analysis with the more freewheeling functionally oriented public policy discourse. The attempt is to do so with a respect for the traditions of legal writing and argument that nonetheless admits legal analysis often translates into a policy tool for accomplishing desired outcomes–and must anticipate criticism in that vernacular.
This differs wholly from an allegation that the reasoning of judicial decisions is predominated by the policy preferences of judges. While this topic is hotly debated, we focus on a different proposition:

That respect for the tradition of the rule of law makes appeal to legal precedent by policymakers highly influential in all civic arena. It equally confounds respect for purportedly unprecedented legal outcomes that have major policy consequences. Thus, the law may be, indeed should be, critically understood and debated by policymakers whether they are formally educated in or practice it.
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Are perpetual employee contracts constitutional?

OSPRI and the Federalist Society host John Yoo luncheon
As the head of the organizing caucus seeking to establish a Federalist Society chapter in Rhode Island, I am pleased to announce that the Federalist Society and the Ocean State Policy Research Institute are sponsoring a lunch with fmr. Bush administration Deputy Assistant Attorney General with the Office of Legal Council, John Yoo.
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What we do.

Our Notes published under the "Good for your Constitution" are intended to track the impact of judicial decisions on policy and vice-versa.

Our white papers will mix traditional sources with citations to the relatively informal commentary in the “blogosphere”. The incorporation of such works is generally limited to posts from blogs that claim a focus and expertise on matters of the law. These blogs essentially represent lawyers writing informally, as opposed to policy analysts writing more formally. Yet, for their informality, the principals on these blogs retain an appeal to authority based on grounding in the law, and it is in this context that we incorporate and critique these materials.

In many cases these online discussions are candid admissions of the policy co-dependency reflected in today's legal process.

This is intended to be some kind of archive of allegations of judicial activism, but rather recognizes that law is, after all, policy in statute. Further, there is an interactive nature where courts do hold statutory schemes unconstitutional, or where they interpret existing statutes in 'unpopular' ways, legislative action often follows court decisions as well as preceding them.

Executive actions as well track a certain tension that further defines the separation of powers.

We welcome the submission of notes and papers hewing to this approach and will alert the legal and policy community of specific topics of interest and publication schedules for these works.

We encourage the face to face dialogue across the fuller range of ideologies that has been pioneered in the legal realm by the Federalist Society and look forward to events in RI sponsored by a local lawyers chapter and by the student chapter at Roger Williams University.