The Gauer Distinguished Lecture in Law and Public Policy is a major scholarly discourse by a national or world leader. Its primary purpose is to encourage debate by presenting, publishing, and disseminating original work on an important constitutional, legal, or public policy issue of the day.

The Lecture is funded through an endowment established by Edward and Marion Gauer. Mr. Gauer, now deceased, was a California businessman and philanthropist dedicated to constitutional and intellectual studies.

The National Legal Center for the Public Interest was founded in 1975 to foster knowledge about law and the administration of justice, especially with respect to individual rights, free enterprise, property ownership, limited government, and a fair and efficient judiciary. In 2007, the National Legal Center merged into AEI and became the AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest.

The 2008 Gauer Distinguished Lecture was given by the Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on Tuesday, September 23, 2008. His subject was "Continuity and Change in the Supreme Court: Antitrust as a Case Study."

Past lecturers have included Presidents Ronald W. Reagan and George H. W. Bush; Chief Justice of the United States William H. Rehnquist; General Colin S. Powell; Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; associate justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Stephen G. Breyer; then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice; Judge William H. Webster, former director of the FBI and CIA; and Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.