Event Overview
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
The Case for Constitutional Failure
Numerous legal and political observers now worry that the nation is headed toward a constitutional crisis, perhaps a confrontation even worse than the events of January 6. But Jack Rakove, emeritus professor of history and political science at Stanford University, and Sonia Mittal, former Assistant United States Attorney and January 6 prosecutor, Associate Research Scholar in Law and Co-Director of the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic at Yale Law School, take a different view. Rakove and Mittal will discuss whether we have now reached a condition of constitutional failure in which each of the three branches of government has effectively abdicated its fundamental responsibilities. This discussion, moderated by Lawrence O’Donnell, host of ‘The Last Word’ on MS NOW, will explore their reasoning on this troubling question.
Presidential Summit
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
New York Hilton Midtown, 1335 6th Ave (Between 53rd and 54th) in New York City
CLE Program | 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | Grand Ballroom West, Third Floor
2.0 MCLE Credits | 2.0 Credits Areas of Professional Practice
This program is transitional and is suitable for all attorneys including those newly admitted.
2:00 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Welcome
Kathleen Sweet, President, New York State Bar Association
2:10 p.m. – 3:55 p.m.
The Case for Constitutional Failure
Discussion with Lawrence O'Donnell, Jack Rakove and Sonia Mittal
Numerous legal and political observers now worry that the nation is headed toward a constitutional crisis, perhaps a confrontation even worse than the events of January 6. But Jack Rakove, emeritus professor of history and political science at Stanford University, and Sonia Mittal, former Senior Counsel to the Capitol Siege Section of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, take a different view. Rakove and Mittal will discuss whether we have now reached a condition of constitutional failure in which each of the three branches of government has effectively abdicated its fundamental responsibilities. This discussion, moderated by Lawrence O'Donnell, will explore their reasoning on this troubling question.
Speaker
Jack Rakove, Ph.D. | William R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies, Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, Stanford University
Sonia Mittal, J.D., Ph.D. | Associate Research Scholar, Yale Law School
Moderator
Lawrence O'Donnell | MSNOW Television Anchor, Producer and Commentator
2.0 Credits in Areas of Professional Practice3:55 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Closing Remarks
Lawrence O’Donnell
Television Anchor, Producer and Commentator, MSNOW
Moderator
Lawrence O’Donnell hosts “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” at 10PM on MSNBC. Each night, O’Donnell relies on his extraordinary background in politics, entertainment and news, to provide the last word on the biggest issues and most compelling stories of the day.
O’Donnell joined MSNBC as a political analyst in 1996. He is an Emmy Award-winning executive producer and writer for the NBC series “The West Wing” and creator and executive producer of the NBC series, “Mister Sterling.”
From 1989 through 1992, O’Donnell served as Senior Advisor to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In 1992, he was Chief of Staff to the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. From 1993 through 1995 he was the Chief of Staff of the Senate Finance Committee. He first began working with Sen. Moynihan as Director of Communications in the Senator’s 1988 re-election campaign.
A writer prior to entering politics and government, O’Donnell published the book Deadly Force (1983), which was adapted as a CBS movie in 1986. He has written essays and articles for several publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, People, Spy, and Boston Magazine.
O’Donnell has also appeared on NBC News’ “Today,” “Good Morning America,” “Nightline,” “Charlie Rose,” and several other programs. Suffolk University awarded O’Donnell an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, in 2001.
Born in Boston, O’Donnell is a graduate of Harvard College.
Jack Rakove, Ph.D.
William R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies, Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, Stanford University
Panelist
Jack Rakove is the William R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of Political Science, emeritus, at Stanford University. After completing his Ph.D. in History at Harvard University, where he studied under Bernard Bailyn, Rakove joined the faculty of Colgate University in 1975, then moved to Stanford five years later.
He is the author of eight books, including The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (Alfred Knopf, 1979); Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (Alfred Knopf, 1996), which won the Pulitzer Prize; Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2010), which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize; and A Politician Thinking: The Creative Mind of James Madison (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017). He has edited seven other books, including The Unfinished Election of 2000 (Basic, 2001) and (with Colleen Sheehan), The Cambridge Companion to The Federalist (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Rakove is a past president of the Society for the History of the Early American Republic and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Sonia Mittal, J.D., Ph.D.
Clinical Lecturer in Law and Associate Research Scholar, Yale Law School
Panelist
Sonia Mittal is a Clinical Lecturer in Law and Associate Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School, where she teaches the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic. The Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic conducts and supports litigation, advocacy, and public awareness at the local, state, national, and international levels about rule of law threats, including in President and Fellows of Harvard College v. U.S Department of Homeland Security, National Treasury Employees Union v. Russell Vought, and Perkins Coie LLP v. U.S. Department of Justice.
Mittal previously served as Senior Counsel and Assistant U.S. Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, where she helped oversee one of the largest Department of Justice investigations in history. She also served as a Trial Attorney in the National Criminal Enforcement Section of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, where she brought the first charges in the Department’s investigation into criminal price-fixing in the generic pharmaceutical industry. That investigation resulted in in top executive pleas to felony price-fixing charges, charges against or resolutions with seven pharmaceutical companies, and the largest criminal penalty for a domestic cartel.
Mittal clerked for Judge Denise L. Cote in the District Court for the Southern District of New York and Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She studies democratic failure here and abroad and her academic work has been published in the Harvard Law & Policy Review; Journal of Law, Economics & Organization; Northwestern Law Review; Stanford Law Review Online; and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law; among other publications. She earned a B.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.