State Constitutions
Michigan Student Chapter
University of Michigan Law School
100 Hutchins Hall
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
100 Hutchins Hall
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Prof. Samuel Bagenstos, who serves as professor of law, specializes in civil rights law, public law, and litigation. From 2009-2011, he was a political appointee in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the number-two official in the Civil Rights Division. His accomplishments included the promulgation of the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act regulations—the first comprehensive update of those regulations since they were first promulgated in 1991—and the reinvigoration of the Civil Rights Division's enforcement of the Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which guarantees people with disabilities the right to live and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate. He led the negotiations of significant Olmstead v. L.C., which guarantees people with disabilities the right to live and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate. He led the negotiations of significant Olmsteadsettlements with the states of Delaware and Georgia, which guarantee appropriate, community-based services to thousands of people with disabilities. He also personally argued major cases in federal district courts and courts of appeals.
As an academic, Prof. Bagenstos has published articles in journals such as the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and many others. He also has published two books: Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement (2009, Yale University Press); and Disability Rights Law: Cases and Materials (2010, Foundation Press). In his "spare time," Prof. Bagenstos remains an active appellate and Supreme Court litigator in civil rights and federalism cases. In one of the most notable cases he has argued, United States v. Georgia, 546 U.S. 151 (2006), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld, as applied to his client's case, the constitutionality of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Prof. Bagenstos has also testified before Congress on several occasions, including in support of the Fair Pay Restoration Act, the ADA Amendments Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, as well as on the application of the ADA to advancing technology and the problem of mental illness in prisons.
Prior to joining the Michigan Law faculty, Prof. Bagenstos was a professor of law, and, from 2007 to 2008, also associate dean for research and faculty development at Washington University School of Law. He has been on the faculty of Harvard Law School, and was a visiting professor at UCLA School of Law. He clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit for one year, and then joined the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Following that position, he served as law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1993, Prof. Bagenstos earned his JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard, where he received the Fay Diploma and was articles office co-chair for the Harvard Law Review.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
JEFFREY S. SUTTON is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He has served as Chair of the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, and Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission. He currently serves as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Since 1993, Chief Judge Sutton has been an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University College of Law, where he teaches seminars on State Constitutional Law, the United States Supreme Court, and Appellate Advocacy. He also teaches a class on State Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. Among other publications, he is the author of Who Decides? States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation and 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law. He is the co-author of a casebook, State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, as well as The Law of Judicial Precedent. He is also the co-editor of The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law. In 2006, Chief Judge Sutton was elected to the American Law Institute, and in 2017 he was elected to its Council.