The Salon

After each published package, Third Things convenes a private salon — a 60 to 75 minute discussion between the lead author, the respondent, and a small group of invited guests. Guests are drawn from the judiciary, Hill staff, agency counsel, and the academy.

The salon is not recorded. It is not for attribution. Its purpose is to surface the lines of argument that the written exchange could not fully explore — the concessions neither author would make in print, the empirical questions that would resolve the disagreement, the policy implications that emerge only in conversation.

Selected salons produce a Letter from the Salon — a short, anonymized digest of the key insights and unresolved questions, published here.