From an email sent by a Federalist Society chapter to Ilya Shapiro:

Do you have any particularly attractive talks that you’d like to give?  In general, I would think your work on campaign finance, on gun rights, and on Obamacare would all be tempting targets.  Perhaps a talk about the Hobby Lobby case would be timely.  What do you think?  Can we build a larger event around one of your talks?

(Personally, I’d prefer to hear about your book on political ignorance–but I don’t think I’m a representative sample.)

Response from Ilya Shapiro:

Regarding the political ignorance topic, I think you’re conflating Ilya Somin with me.  I wish I could take credit for that book, though I do indeed handle campaign finance and the Second Amendment (and we’ve both done plenty of Obamacare work).

The chapter responds:

Holy cow — I’m completely conflating the two names!  Sorry about that!

Makes me wonder how long I’ve been doing that…

Shapiro told me, “Here we have an example of an offshoot of Ilya confusion, namely Ilya conflation.”

And yes, it has happened that one of the Ilyas was invited to a FedSoc event, and showed up to find they really wanted the other one. And, it has also happened that, due to messed up emails from students, *both* Ilyas have showed up at an event. (I think this was in the D.C. area so costs were minimal).