On February 12–13, 2026, the Wisconsin International Law Journal Symposium—co-sponsored by the Lawyers and Democratic Decline (LADD) project—brought scholars and practitioners to the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison for two days of conversation on “Challenges Posed to Judges and Lawyers by Creeping Authoritarianism,” with panels spanning judicial behavior and constraint (including cases from the U.S., Egypt, Ukraine, and China), activist lawyering and political litigation (with a strong Brazil focus, plus comparative work on Russia and Hungary), and the criminal justice system (from public defenders and legal advocates to local prosecutors).