The panel discussion had its origin in an article by Jeffrey Rosen which appeared in The New Yorker’s late October special issue, called "The Next Issue." In his article, Rosen, talking, among other things, about new kinds of crime control and prevention strategies, quoted former University of Chicago Law School professor and current Harvard Law School professor Larry Lessig. "’My aim,’ Lessig announced, ‘is to outline a research program for what I will playfully refer to as the New Chicago School.’ This new program, he promised, would study the ways that law can influence behavior indirectly, by changing social norms."

Roundtable invited Lisa E. Bernstein, then a law professor at Georgetown University and now a professor at the University of Chicago Law School; Dan M. Kahan, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School; Tracey L. Meares, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School; Randal C. Picker, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School; and Eric Posner, then a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and now a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, to participate in a panel discussion in which each talked about his or her work in social norms and then commented briefly on the so-called New Chicago School. Richard A. Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Law School, was asked to moderate and to comment.

A transcript of the discussion appears in Volume 5 of the Roundtable