The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called simply the Federalist Society, began at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School in 1982 as a student organization that challenged what its members perceived as the orthodox American liberal ideology found in most law schools. The Society "is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be."
The Society currently has chapters at approximately 180 United States law schools, including all of the top 20 as ranked by U.S. News & World Report.date=March 2008 The Society also boasts a membership of over 20,000 practicing attorneys (organized as "alumni chapters" within the Society's "Lawyers Division") in sixty cities. The Federalist Society also serves as a parent organization for conservatives and libertarians who are interested in the current state of the legal order. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C.
