Walter E. Meyer Professor Emeritus of Property and Urban Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School
Robert C. Ellickson was appointed Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at Yale Law School in 1988. He has published numerous articles in legal and public policy journals on topics such as land use and housing policy, land tenure systems, social norms, homelessness, and the organization of households, community associations, and cities. Professor Ellickson’s books include Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes (1991) (awarded the Order of the Coif Triennial Book Award in 1996), The Household: Informal Order Around the Hearth (2008), Land Use Controls: Cases and Materials (4th edition 2013, with Vicki Been, Roderick M. Hills, Jr. and Christopher Serkin), and Perspectives on Property Law (4th edition 2014, with Carol M. Rose and Henry E. Smith). He has written about ancient systems of land tenure and also periodically teaches a seminar on the history of development of the City of New Haven. Robert Ellickson was a member of the USC Law Faculty in 1970–1981, and the Stanford Law Faculty in 1981–88. He also has been a visiting professor at the Harvard and University of Chicago Law Schools. He was a founding member and later a director of the American Law and Economics Association, and served as its President in 2000–01. In 2016, the Association awarded him the Ronald H. Coase Medal in recognition of his scholarly contributions. Professor Ellickson served as an adviser during the American Law Institute’s preparation of the Restatement, Third, Property—Servitudes, and currently serves in the same capacity for the Restatement (Fourth) of Property. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and, in 2008, received the William & Mary Law School’s Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize for Property Scholarship. At Yale Law School he has served as Deputy Dean (1991–92) and, during the reconstruction of the Sterling Law buildings, as chairman of the Building Committee. Prior to entering teaching in 1970, he worked for a Presidential commission on housing policy and then for Levitt & Sons, the homebuilding firm. Professor Ellickson is married to Lynn Hammer and has two children. For many decades he competed in competitive Scrabble tournaments and, during intervals when fortune smiled, was ranked as one of the top 20 players in the United States.
Frances and George Skestos Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Adam C. Pritchard, the Frances and George Skestos Professor of Law, teaches corporate and securities law. He is the author, with Stephen J. Choi, of Securities Regulation: Cases and Analysis, currently in its fifth edition. His research focuses on securities class actions, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement, and the history of securities law in the U.S. Supreme Court. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Law and Economics, American Law and Economics Review, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organizations, and various law reviews. Professor Pritchard holds BA and JD degrees from the University of Virginia, as well as an MPP from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. While at Virginia, he was an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics and served as articles development editor of the Virginia Law Review. After graduation, he clerked for the Hon. J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and served as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice. After working in private practice, Professor Pritchard served as senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel of the SEC, where he wrote appellate briefs and studied the effect of recent reforms in the areas of securities fraud litigation. He received the SEC's Law and Policy Award for his work in United States v. O'Hagan, in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the misappropriation theory of insider trading. Professor Pritchard has been a visiting professor at the Northwestern University School of Law, the Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Iowa School of Law. He also has been a visiting scholar at the SEC and a visiting fellow in capital market studies at the Cato Institute. He was previously a member of the FINRA National Adjudicatory Council and the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel.
Fessenden Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Henry E. Smith is the Fessenden Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he directs the Project on the Foundations of Private Law. Previously, he taught at the Northwestern University School of Law and was the Fred A. Johnston Professor of Property and Environmental Law at Yale Law School. He holds an A.B. from Harvard, a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Stanford, and a J.D. from Yale. After law school he clerked for the Hon. Ralph K. Winter, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Smith has written primarily on the law and economics of property, intellectual property, and remedies, with a focus on how property-related institutions lower information costs and constrain strategic behavior. He teaches primarily in the areas of property, intellectual property, equity, restitution, and remedies. His books include The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Property (2010, coauthored with Thomas W. Merrill), Property: Principles and Policies (3th ed., 2022, coauthored with Thomas W. Merrill & Maureen E. Brady), and Principles of Patent Law (7th ed., 2018, co-authored with John M. Golden, F. Scott Kieff, and Pauline Newman). He is the co-editor of The Research Handbook on the Economics of Property Law (2011, with Kenneth Ayotte), Philosophical Foundations of Property Law (2013, with James Penner), Perspectives on Property Law (4th ed., 2014, with Robert C. Ellickson and Carol M. Rose), Equity and Law: Fusion and Fission (2019, with John C.P. Goldberg & P.G. Turner), Philosophical Foundations of the Law of Equity (2020, with Dennis Klimcuk & Irit Samet), and The Oxford Handbook of the New Private Law (2020, with Andrew S. Gold, John C.P. Goldberg, Daniel B. Kelly & Emily Sherwin). In 2015-2016, Smith served as the President of the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics, and in 2014, the American Law Institute named him Reporter for a Fourth Restatement of Property.
Walter E. Meyer Professor Emeritus of Property and Urban Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School
Robert C. Ellickson was appointed Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at Yale Law School in 1988. He has published numerous articles in legal and public policy journals on topics such as land use and housing policy, land tenure systems, social norms, homelessness, and the organization of households, community associations, and cities. Professor Ellickson’s books include Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes (1991) (awarded the Order of the Coif Triennial Book Award in 1996), The Household: Informal Order Around the Hearth (2008), Land Use Controls: Cases and Materials (4th edition 2013, with Vicki Been, Roderick M. Hills, Jr. and Christopher Serkin), and Perspectives on Property Law (4th edition 2014, with Carol M. Rose and Henry E. Smith). He has written about ancient systems of land tenure and also periodically teaches a seminar on the history of development of the City of New Haven. Robert Ellickson was a member of the USC Law Faculty in 1970–1981, and the Stanford Law Faculty in 1981–88. He also has been a visiting professor at the Harvard and University of Chicago Law Schools. He was a founding member and later a director of the American Law and Economics Association, and served as its President in 2000–01. In 2016, the Association awarded him the Ronald H. Coase Medal in recognition of his scholarly contributions. Professor Ellickson served as an adviser during the American Law Institute’s preparation of the Restatement, Third, Property—Servitudes, and currently serves in the same capacity for the Restatement (Fourth) of Property. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and, in 2008, received the William & Mary Law School’s Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize for Property Scholarship. At Yale Law School he has served as Deputy Dean (1991–92) and, during the reconstruction of the Sterling Law buildings, as chairman of the Building Committee. Prior to entering teaching in 1970, he worked for a Presidential commission on housing policy and then for Levitt & Sons, the homebuilding firm. Professor Ellickson is married to Lynn Hammer and has two children. For many decades he competed in competitive Scrabble tournaments and, during intervals when fortune smiled, was ranked as one of the top 20 players in the United States.
Frances and George Skestos Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Adam C. Pritchard, the Frances and George Skestos Professor of Law, teaches corporate and securities law. He is the author, with Stephen J. Choi, of Securities Regulation: Cases and Analysis, currently in its fifth edition. His research focuses on securities class actions, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement, and the history of securities law in the U.S. Supreme Court. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Law and Economics, American Law and Economics Review, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organizations, and various law reviews. Professor Pritchard holds BA and JD degrees from the University of Virginia, as well as an MPP from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. While at Virginia, he was an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics and served as articles development editor of the Virginia Law Review. After graduation, he clerked for the Hon. J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and served as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice. After working in private practice, Professor Pritchard served as senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel of the SEC, where he wrote appellate briefs and studied the effect of recent reforms in the areas of securities fraud litigation. He received the SEC's Law and Policy Award for his work in United States v. O'Hagan, in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the misappropriation theory of insider trading. Professor Pritchard has been a visiting professor at the Northwestern University School of Law, the Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Iowa School of Law. He also has been a visiting scholar at the SEC and a visiting fellow in capital market studies at the Cato Institute. He was previously a member of the FINRA National Adjudicatory Council and the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel.
Fessenden Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Henry E. Smith is the Fessenden Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he directs the Project on the Foundations of Private Law. Previously, he taught at the Northwestern University School of Law and was the Fred A. Johnston Professor of Property and Environmental Law at Yale Law School. He holds an A.B. from Harvard, a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Stanford, and a J.D. from Yale. After law school he clerked for the Hon. Ralph K. Winter, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Smith has written primarily on the law and economics of property, intellectual property, and remedies, with a focus on how property-related institutions lower information costs and constrain strategic behavior. He teaches primarily in the areas of property, intellectual property, equity, restitution, and remedies. His books include The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Property (2010, coauthored with Thomas W. Merrill), Property: Principles and Policies (3th ed., 2022, coauthored with Thomas W. Merrill & Maureen E. Brady), and Principles of Patent Law (7th ed., 2018, co-authored with John M. Golden, F. Scott Kieff, and Pauline Newman). He is the co-editor of The Research Handbook on the Economics of Property Law (2011, with Kenneth Ayotte), Philosophical Foundations of Property Law (2013, with James Penner), Perspectives on Property Law (4th ed., 2014, with Robert C. Ellickson and Carol M. Rose), Equity and Law: Fusion and Fission (2019, with John C.P. Goldberg & P.G. Turner), Philosophical Foundations of the Law of Equity (2020, with Dennis Klimcuk & Irit Samet), and The Oxford Handbook of the New Private Law (2020, with Andrew S. Gold, John C.P. Goldberg, Daniel B. Kelly & Emily Sherwin). In 2015-2016, Smith served as the President of the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics, and in 2014, the American Law Institute named him Reporter for a Fourth Restatement of Property.
Founder and President, American Civil Rights Institute
Ward Connerly is founder and President of the American Civil Rights Institute – a national, not-for-profit organization aimed at educating the public about the need to move beyond race and, specifically, racial and gender preferences. Mr. Connerly has gained national attention as an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race, sex, or ethnic background.
Mr. Connerly is author of Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences and his new release Lessons from My Uncle James: Beyond Skin Color to the Content of Our Character. One part memoir, one part moral guide, Lessons from My Uncle James is a touching, funny and ultimately a philosophical book about living a principled and productive life regardless of skin color. Lessons illustrates how Mr. Connerly arrived at the ethics that have guided his life and is a new starting point for the discussion about character that America must have in order to move beyond race for good.
As a member of the University of California Board of Regents, Mr. Connerly focused the attention of the nation on the University's race-based system of preferences in its admissions policy. On July 20, 1995, following Mr. Connerly's lead, a majority of the Regents voted to end the University's use of race as a means for admissions. He was appointed to a 12-year term as UC Regent in March 1993.
In 1995, Mr. Connerly accepted chairmanship of the California Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209) campaign. Under his leadership, the campaign successfully obtained more than 1 million signatures and qualified for the November 1996 ballot. California voters passed Proposition 209 by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin.
Mr. Connerly also led the efforts to pass initiatives in the States of Washington, Michigan, Nebraska and Arizona that were patterned after California's Proposition 209, to require equal treatment under the law for all residents in public education, public employment and public contracting.
Mr. Connerly has been profiled on 60 Minutes, the cover of Parade magazine, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek magazine, and virtually every major news magazine in America. He has also appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Crossfire, Hannity & Colmes, Meet the Press, Dateline, NBC Nightly News, CNN, and C-SPAN.
Mr. Connerly is President and Chief Executive Officer of Connerly & Associates, Inc., a Sacramento-based association management and land development consulting firm founded in 1973. He is regarded as one of the housing industry's top experts, possessing a comprehensive knowledge of housing and development issues. He has been inducted as a lifetime member into the California Building Industry Hall of Fame and has been a member of the Rotary Club of Sacramento for over 15 years.
Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence, University of Pennsylvania
MARCI A. HAMILTON is a Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the founder, CEO, and Academic Director of CHILD USA, www.childusa.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit academic think tank at the University of Pennsylvania dedicated to interdisciplinary, evidence-based research to prevent child abuse and neglect. Before joining the program on religion at Penn, Professor Hamilton was the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
Hamilton is the leading public intellectual critic of extreme religious liberty and its impact on vulnerable populations including children, LGBTQ, and women. The author of God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty (Cambridge University Press), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, she is also a columnist for Verdict on Justia.com. Hamilton successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) at the Supreme Court in Boerne v. Flores (1997), and defeated the RFRA claim brought by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee against hundreds of child sex abuse survivors in Committee of Unsecured Creditors v. Listecki (7th Cir. 2015).
Drawing on her experience studying and advising in cases involving clergy sex abuse, Hamilton is the leading expert on child sex abuse statutes of limitations and has submitted testimony and advised legislators in every state where significant reform has occurred. She is the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge University Press), which advocates for the elimination of child sex abuse statutes of limitations. She has also filed countless pro bono amicus briefs for the protection of children at the United States Supreme Court and the state supreme courts. Her textbook, Children and the Law, co-authored with Martin Gardner, will be published Fall 2017 by Carolina Academic Press, formerly Lexis/Nexis.
Hamilton clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Hamilton has been honored with the 2016 Voice Today, Voice of Gratitude Award; the 2015 Religious Liberty Award, American Humanist Association; the 2014 Freethought Heroine Award; the National Crime Victim Bar Association’s Frank Carrington Champion of Civil Justice Award, 2012; the E. Nathaniel Gates Award for outstanding public advocacy and scholarship, 2008; and selected as a Pennsylvania Woman of the Year Award, 2012, among others. She is also frequently quoted in the national media on RFRA, RLUIPA, First Amendment, clergy sex abuse, and statute of limitations issues.
Professor Hamilton is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, B.A., summa cum laude; Pennsylvania State University, M.A. (English, fiction writing, High Honors); M.A. (Philosophy); and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif.
Former Michigan Supreme Court Justice
Robert P. Young, Jr., retired justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, promoted initiatives to measure judicial performance, track public satisfaction, adopt best practices, streamline court processes, and implement technologies that expand public access, increase efficiency, and boost productivity of trial courts. From 2018 to 2019 he served as vice president and general counsel at Michigan State University. Mr. Young previously served 18 years as a member of the Michigan Supreme Court, including as chief justice from 2011 to January 2017. Before that, he was a judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals. Mr. Young has served on the boards of many charitable groups, including the Detroit Urban League, United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit, and Vista Maria, a resource center for abused and neglected young women and girls. A former commissioner of the Michigan Civil Service Commission, he was a trustee of Central Michigan University, University Liggett School, and the Grosse Pointe Academy. Mr. Young is a former chair of the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce Leadership Detroit. He had been an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law School for more than 20 years and more recently taught at Michigan State University Law School.
Founder and President, American Civil Rights Institute
Ward Connerly is founder and President of the American Civil Rights Institute – a national, not-for-profit organization aimed at educating the public about the need to move beyond race and, specifically, racial and gender preferences. Mr. Connerly has gained national attention as an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race, sex, or ethnic background.
Mr. Connerly is author of Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences and his new release Lessons from My Uncle James: Beyond Skin Color to the Content of Our Character. One part memoir, one part moral guide, Lessons from My Uncle James is a touching, funny and ultimately a philosophical book about living a principled and productive life regardless of skin color. Lessons illustrates how Mr. Connerly arrived at the ethics that have guided his life and is a new starting point for the discussion about character that America must have in order to move beyond race for good.
As a member of the University of California Board of Regents, Mr. Connerly focused the attention of the nation on the University's race-based system of preferences in its admissions policy. On July 20, 1995, following Mr. Connerly's lead, a majority of the Regents voted to end the University's use of race as a means for admissions. He was appointed to a 12-year term as UC Regent in March 1993.
In 1995, Mr. Connerly accepted chairmanship of the California Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209) campaign. Under his leadership, the campaign successfully obtained more than 1 million signatures and qualified for the November 1996 ballot. California voters passed Proposition 209 by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin.
Mr. Connerly also led the efforts to pass initiatives in the States of Washington, Michigan, Nebraska and Arizona that were patterned after California's Proposition 209, to require equal treatment under the law for all residents in public education, public employment and public contracting.
Mr. Connerly has been profiled on 60 Minutes, the cover of Parade magazine, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek magazine, and virtually every major news magazine in America. He has also appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Crossfire, Hannity & Colmes, Meet the Press, Dateline, NBC Nightly News, CNN, and C-SPAN.
Mr. Connerly is President and Chief Executive Officer of Connerly & Associates, Inc., a Sacramento-based association management and land development consulting firm founded in 1973. He is regarded as one of the housing industry's top experts, possessing a comprehensive knowledge of housing and development issues. He has been inducted as a lifetime member into the California Building Industry Hall of Fame and has been a member of the Rotary Club of Sacramento for over 15 years.
Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence, University of Pennsylvania
MARCI A. HAMILTON is a Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the founder, CEO, and Academic Director of CHILD USA, www.childusa.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit academic think tank at the University of Pennsylvania dedicated to interdisciplinary, evidence-based research to prevent child abuse and neglect. Before joining the program on religion at Penn, Professor Hamilton was the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
Hamilton is the leading public intellectual critic of extreme religious liberty and its impact on vulnerable populations including children, LGBTQ, and women. The author of God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty (Cambridge University Press), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, she is also a columnist for Verdict on Justia.com. Hamilton successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) at the Supreme Court in Boerne v. Flores (1997), and defeated the RFRA claim brought by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee against hundreds of child sex abuse survivors in Committee of Unsecured Creditors v. Listecki (7th Cir. 2015).
Drawing on her experience studying and advising in cases involving clergy sex abuse, Hamilton is the leading expert on child sex abuse statutes of limitations and has submitted testimony and advised legislators in every state where significant reform has occurred. She is the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge University Press), which advocates for the elimination of child sex abuse statutes of limitations. She has also filed countless pro bono amicus briefs for the protection of children at the United States Supreme Court and the state supreme courts. Her textbook, Children and the Law, co-authored with Martin Gardner, will be published Fall 2017 by Carolina Academic Press, formerly Lexis/Nexis.
Hamilton clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Hamilton has been honored with the 2016 Voice Today, Voice of Gratitude Award; the 2015 Religious Liberty Award, American Humanist Association; the 2014 Freethought Heroine Award; the National Crime Victim Bar Association’s Frank Carrington Champion of Civil Justice Award, 2012; the E. Nathaniel Gates Award for outstanding public advocacy and scholarship, 2008; and selected as a Pennsylvania Woman of the Year Award, 2012, among others. She is also frequently quoted in the national media on RFRA, RLUIPA, First Amendment, clergy sex abuse, and statute of limitations issues.
Professor Hamilton is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, B.A., summa cum laude; Pennsylvania State University, M.A. (English, fiction writing, High Honors); M.A. (Philosophy); and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif.
Former Michigan Supreme Court Justice
Robert P. Young, Jr., retired justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, promoted initiatives to measure judicial performance, track public satisfaction, adopt best practices, streamline court processes, and implement technologies that expand public access, increase efficiency, and boost productivity of trial courts. From 2018 to 2019 he served as vice president and general counsel at Michigan State University. Mr. Young previously served 18 years as a member of the Michigan Supreme Court, including as chief justice from 2011 to January 2017. Before that, he was a judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals. Mr. Young has served on the boards of many charitable groups, including the Detroit Urban League, United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit, and Vista Maria, a resource center for abused and neglected young women and girls. A former commissioner of the Michigan Civil Service Commission, he was a trustee of Central Michigan University, University Liggett School, and the Grosse Pointe Academy. Mr. Young is a former chair of the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce Leadership Detroit. He had been an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law School for more than 20 years and more recently taught at Michigan State University Law School.
Dean Emeritus and Branch Rickey Collegiate Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Evan H. Caminker, the Branch Rickey Collegiate Professor of Law, served as dean of the Law School from 2003 to 2013. During his tenure he helped design and oversee a significant expansion and renovation of the Law School's historic facilities, emphasized and shaped a curricular and co-curricular focus on skills-based and experiential learning, and helped nurture the unique culture at Michigan Law that creates a vibrant and collegial student-faculty community. He recently spent several years (both full- and part-time) serving as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Detroit office, where he specialized in appellate litigation. Professor Caminker writes, teaches, and litigates about various issues of American constitutional law, including individual rights, allocation of governmental powers, and judicial decision-making. He has taught in the fields of appellate advocacy, constitutional law, federal courts, and civil procedure, and has lectured widely before various professional, scholarly, and student audiences. Professor Caminker came to Michigan Law from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, where he was a faculty member from 1991 to 1999. He received his BA in political economy and environmental studies, summa cum laude, from UCLA and his JD from Yale Law School. He clerked for Justice William Brennan Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court and for The Hon. William Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Caminker also practiced law with the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles and with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C. From May 2000 through January 2001, he served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice.
Paul J. Schierl Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Professor Richard W. Garnett teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law, the First Amendment, and law and religion. He is a leading authority on questions and debates regarding religious freedom and church-state relations, and is the founding director of Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Church, State, and Society.
Garnett clerked for the late Chief Justice of the United States, William H. Rehnquist, and also for the late Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Richard S. Arnold. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1995 and his B.A., summa cum laude, from Duke University in 1990. He joined the faculty in 1999 after practicing law in Washington, D.C. with Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin.
William T. Comfort, III Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Roderick Hills teaches and writes in public law areas, including constitutional law, local government law, land-use regulation, administrative law, and statutory interpretation. His focus in each area is on the rules and policies governing division of powers between central and subcentral governments. He holds bachelor’s and law degrees from Yale University. Following law school, he served as a law clerk for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and practiced law in Colorado. Hills previously taught at the University of Michigan Law School from 1994 to 2006. He is a member of the state bar of New York and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law; Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law Emeritus, University of Texas
Douglas Laycock is perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the law of religious liberty and also on the law of remedies. He has taught and written about these topics for more than four decades at the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. He retired from teaching at UVA Law School in May 2023.
Laycock has testified frequently before Congress and has argued many cases in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has served as lead counsel in six cases and has also filed influential amicus briefs. He is the author (co-author in the most recent edition) of the leading casebook Modern American Remedies, the award-winning monograph The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule and many articles in leading law reviews. He co-edited a collection of essays, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty.
His many writings on religious liberty have been republished in a five-volume collection:
Laycock resigned from the council and as first vice president of the American Law Institute to become co-reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Remedies. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Robert Mundheim Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Amy Wax's work addresses issues in social welfare law and policy as well as the relationship of the family, the workplace, and labor markets. By bringing to bear her training in biomedical sciences and appellate practice as well as her interest in economic analysis, Wax has developed a uniquely insightful approach to problems in her areas of expertise.
Wax's career has been stellar. As an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Wax argued 15 cases before the United States Supreme Court. She taught for seven years at the University of Virginia Law School before joining the Penn Law faculty in 2001.
Wax has published widely in law journals, including Chicago, Virginia, Villanova, Indiana, Emory, the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and Law, Yale Journal on Regulation and the Michigan Journal of Race and Law. Papers in press address liberal theory and welfare work requirements as well as the economics of federal disability laws. Current work in progress includes articles on law and evolutionary psychology, the political psychology of social security reform, and economic models of the family-friendly workplace. Wax has also received the A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course.
Dean Emeritus and Branch Rickey Collegiate Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Evan H. Caminker, the Branch Rickey Collegiate Professor of Law, served as dean of the Law School from 2003 to 2013. During his tenure he helped design and oversee a significant expansion and renovation of the Law School's historic facilities, emphasized and shaped a curricular and co-curricular focus on skills-based and experiential learning, and helped nurture the unique culture at Michigan Law that creates a vibrant and collegial student-faculty community. He recently spent several years (both full- and part-time) serving as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Detroit office, where he specialized in appellate litigation. Professor Caminker writes, teaches, and litigates about various issues of American constitutional law, including individual rights, allocation of governmental powers, and judicial decision-making. He has taught in the fields of appellate advocacy, constitutional law, federal courts, and civil procedure, and has lectured widely before various professional, scholarly, and student audiences. Professor Caminker came to Michigan Law from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, where he was a faculty member from 1991 to 1999. He received his BA in political economy and environmental studies, summa cum laude, from UCLA and his JD from Yale Law School. He clerked for Justice William Brennan Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court and for The Hon. William Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Caminker also practiced law with the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles and with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C. From May 2000 through January 2001, he served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice.
Paul J. Schierl Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Professor Richard W. Garnett teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law, the First Amendment, and law and religion. He is a leading authority on questions and debates regarding religious freedom and church-state relations, and is the founding director of Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Church, State, and Society.
Garnett clerked for the late Chief Justice of the United States, William H. Rehnquist, and also for the late Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Richard S. Arnold. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1995 and his B.A., summa cum laude, from Duke University in 1990. He joined the faculty in 1999 after practicing law in Washington, D.C. with Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin.
William T. Comfort, III Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Roderick Hills teaches and writes in public law areas, including constitutional law, local government law, land-use regulation, administrative law, and statutory interpretation. His focus in each area is on the rules and policies governing division of powers between central and subcentral governments. He holds bachelor’s and law degrees from Yale University. Following law school, he served as a law clerk for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and practiced law in Colorado. Hills previously taught at the University of Michigan Law School from 1994 to 2006. He is a member of the state bar of New York and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law; Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law Emeritus, University of Texas
Douglas Laycock is perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the law of religious liberty and also on the law of remedies. He has taught and written about these topics for more than four decades at the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. He retired from teaching at UVA Law School in May 2023.
Laycock has testified frequently before Congress and has argued many cases in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has served as lead counsel in six cases and has also filed influential amicus briefs. He is the author (co-author in the most recent edition) of the leading casebook Modern American Remedies, the award-winning monograph The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule and many articles in leading law reviews. He co-edited a collection of essays, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty.
His many writings on religious liberty have been republished in a five-volume collection:
Laycock resigned from the council and as first vice president of the American Law Institute to become co-reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Remedies. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Robert Mundheim Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Amy Wax's work addresses issues in social welfare law and policy as well as the relationship of the family, the workplace, and labor markets. By bringing to bear her training in biomedical sciences and appellate practice as well as her interest in economic analysis, Wax has developed a uniquely insightful approach to problems in her areas of expertise.
Wax's career has been stellar. As an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Wax argued 15 cases before the United States Supreme Court. She taught for seven years at the University of Virginia Law School before joining the Penn Law faculty in 2001.
Wax has published widely in law journals, including Chicago, Virginia, Villanova, Indiana, Emory, the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and Law, Yale Journal on Regulation and the Michigan Journal of Race and Law. Papers in press address liberal theory and welfare work requirements as well as the economics of federal disability laws. Current work in progress includes articles on law and evolutionary psychology, the political psychology of social security reform, and economic models of the family-friendly workplace. Wax has also received the A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course.
Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, UNC School of Law
Michael Gerhardt joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2005 and serves as the Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence. His teaching and research focuses on constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress. Gerhardt is the author of six books, including leading treatises on impeachment, appointments, presidential power, Supreme Court precedent, and separation of powers. He has written more than a hundred law review articles and dozens of op eds in the nation’s leading news publications, including SCOTUSblog, The New York Times, and Washington Post. His book, The Forgotten Presidents (Oxford University Press 2013), was named by The Financial Times as one of the best non-fiction books of 2013. He was inducted into the American Law Institute in 2016. Gerhardt attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated order of the coif and served as a research assistant to both Phil Kurland and Cass Sunstein and as one of the two student editors of The Supreme Court Review. After law school, he clerked for Chief District Judge Robert McRae of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Tennessee and Judge Gilbert Merritt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He served as Deputy Media Director of Al Gore’s first Senate campaign, practiced law for three years for two boutique litigation firms in Washington and Atlanta, and taught for more than a decade at William & Mary Law School before joining Carolina Law.
Gerhardt’s extensive public service has included his testifying more than a dozen times before Congress, including as the only joint witness in the Clinton impeachment proceedings in the House; speaking behind closed doors to the entire House of Representatives about the history of impeachment in 1998; and serving as special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee for seven of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices. In 2015, he became the first legal scholar to be asked by the Library of Congress to serve as its principal adviser in revising the official United States Constitution Annotated. In 2019, the Order of the Coif named Gerhardt as its Distinguished Visitor for 2020, an award given to only one law professor each year for outstanding legal scholarship.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Writer, Washington Bureau, Los Angeles Times
David G. Savage has covered the Supreme Court and legal issues for the Los Angeles Times in the Washington bureau since 1986. He has covered the Senate confirmation hearings for all of the nine justices, from Antonin Scalia to Elena Kagan. In addition to writing about the court’s work, he has written on the legal battles that have raged in Washington, from the Clinton impeachment in the 1990s to the Florida recount after 2000 presidential election, the “war on terrorism” in the years after the 9/11 attacks, and more recently, on voting rights and gay marriage. He joined The Times in 1981 and was an education writer on the Metro staff for five years.
Former United States Senator, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Partner, Wise Carter Child & Caraway -- Jackson, Miss.
Distinguished Senior Fellow and Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Mr. Whelan directs EPPC’s program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process. As a contributor to National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog, he has been a leading commentator on nominations to the Supreme Court and the lower courts and on issues of constitutional law. He has written essays and op-eds for leading newspapers—including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—opinion journals, and academic symposia and law reviews. The National Law Journal has named Mr. Whelan among its “Champions and Visionaries” in the practice of law in D.C.
Mr. Whelan is co-editor of three volumes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s work: Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017), a New York Times bestselling collection of speeches by Justice Scalia; On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), a collection of Justice Scalia’s writings on faith and religion; and The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law (Crown Forum, 2020), a collection of Justice Scalia’s views on legal issues.
Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Justice Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government. From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Mr. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In 1981 Mr. Whelan graduated with honors from Harvard College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1985 from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review.
For more on Mr. Whelan’s background, see this interview.
Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, UNC School of Law
Michael Gerhardt joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2005 and serves as the Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence. His teaching and research focuses on constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress. Gerhardt is the author of six books, including leading treatises on impeachment, appointments, presidential power, Supreme Court precedent, and separation of powers. He has written more than a hundred law review articles and dozens of op eds in the nation’s leading news publications, including SCOTUSblog, The New York Times, and Washington Post. His book, The Forgotten Presidents (Oxford University Press 2013), was named by The Financial Times as one of the best non-fiction books of 2013. He was inducted into the American Law Institute in 2016. Gerhardt attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated order of the coif and served as a research assistant to both Phil Kurland and Cass Sunstein and as one of the two student editors of The Supreme Court Review. After law school, he clerked for Chief District Judge Robert McRae of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Tennessee and Judge Gilbert Merritt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He served as Deputy Media Director of Al Gore’s first Senate campaign, practiced law for three years for two boutique litigation firms in Washington and Atlanta, and taught for more than a decade at William & Mary Law School before joining Carolina Law.
Gerhardt’s extensive public service has included his testifying more than a dozen times before Congress, including as the only joint witness in the Clinton impeachment proceedings in the House; speaking behind closed doors to the entire House of Representatives about the history of impeachment in 1998; and serving as special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee for seven of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices. In 2015, he became the first legal scholar to be asked by the Library of Congress to serve as its principal adviser in revising the official United States Constitution Annotated. In 2019, the Order of the Coif named Gerhardt as its Distinguished Visitor for 2020, an award given to only one law professor each year for outstanding legal scholarship.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Writer, Washington Bureau, Los Angeles Times
David G. Savage has covered the Supreme Court and legal issues for the Los Angeles Times in the Washington bureau since 1986. He has covered the Senate confirmation hearings for all of the nine justices, from Antonin Scalia to Elena Kagan. In addition to writing about the court’s work, he has written on the legal battles that have raged in Washington, from the Clinton impeachment in the 1990s to the Florida recount after 2000 presidential election, the “war on terrorism” in the years after the 9/11 attacks, and more recently, on voting rights and gay marriage. He joined The Times in 1981 and was an education writer on the Metro staff for five years.
Former United States Senator, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Partner, Wise Carter Child & Caraway -- Jackson, Miss.
Distinguished Senior Fellow and Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Mr. Whelan directs EPPC’s program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process. As a contributor to National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog, he has been a leading commentator on nominations to the Supreme Court and the lower courts and on issues of constitutional law. He has written essays and op-eds for leading newspapers—including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—opinion journals, and academic symposia and law reviews. The National Law Journal has named Mr. Whelan among its “Champions and Visionaries” in the practice of law in D.C.
Mr. Whelan is co-editor of three volumes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s work: Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017), a New York Times bestselling collection of speeches by Justice Scalia; On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), a collection of Justice Scalia’s writings on faith and religion; and The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law (Crown Forum, 2020), a collection of Justice Scalia’s views on legal issues.
Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Justice Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government. From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Mr. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In 1981 Mr. Whelan graduated with honors from Harvard College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1985 from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review.
For more on Mr. Whelan’s background, see this interview.
Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law
With his work in regulatory takings and other aspects of property law, professor of law Steven Eagle plays an important role in the ongoing dialogue among American legal scholars, lawyers, and judges on the proper interpretation of property rights in the Constitution. He is the author of a leading property treatise and scholarly and popular articles and teaches in programs for judges and the practicing bar.
Professor Eagle came to George Mason in 1987 and also has taught at the law schools of Vanderbilt University, the University of Toledo, and Pace University. He earned his B.B.A. from the City College of New York (1965) and his J.D. from Yale Law School (1970). Professor Eagle teaches the first-year course, Property, Land Use Planning, and an advanced constitutional law seminar on property rights.
Milton R. Underwood Professor of Law Emeritus and Professor of History Emeritus, Vanderbilt University
James Ely is a renowned legal historian and property rights expert whose career accomplishments were recognized with both the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize and the Owner's Counsel of American Crystal Eagle Award in 2006. He is the author of several books that have received widespread critical acclaim from legal scholars and historians, including The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights, The Fuller Court: Justices, Rulings and Legacy in which he examines the work of the Supreme Court between 1888 and 1910, Railroads and American Law in which he systematically explores the way that the rise of the railroad shaped American legal culture, and The Contract Clause: A Constitutional History. He also is the author of numerous articles dealing with the rights of property owners. He served as an editor of both the Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court, and the second edition of the Oxford Guide to Supreme Court Decisions. Professor Ely received the Tennessee History Book Award in 2002 for A History of the Tennessee Supreme Court. Between 1987 and 1999, he served as an associate editor of the American Journal of Legal History. Since Professor Ely joined Vanderbilt faculty in 1972, he has been frequently recognized by students as one of the law school's outstanding teachers.
Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
Professor Dan Kelly teaches and writes in the areas of property law, remedies, and wills, trusts, and estates. He is also a co-founder and co-director (with Professor Margaret Brinig) of the Notre Dame Law and Economics Program. A member of the American Law Institute, Kelly serves as an associate reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of Property. During spring 2016, he was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Kelly’s research focuses on the economic analysis of property law, including the assembly of land for economic development, the sharing and division of property among multiple parties through contracts, leases, and trusts, and the transfer of wealth at death. He has presented two articles at the Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum: “Strategic Spillovers,” published in the Columbia Law Review, and “The Right to Include,” published in the Emory Law Journal. His research on the government’s use of eminent domain has appeared in the Cornell Law Review, Harvard Law Review Forum, Supreme Court Economic Review, and Research Handbook on the Economic Analysis of Property Law. And he has written several articles on wills, trusts, and fiduciary law, including “Toward Economic Analysis of the Uniform Probate Code” and “Restricting Testamentary Freedom: Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Justifications.”
Kelly has served as a referee for a number of journals, law reviews, and university presses, including the American Law & Economics Review, European Association of Law & Economics, Harvard Law Review, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Journal of Legal Analysis, Review of Law & Economics, Society for Institutional & Organizational Economics, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Chicago Press, Yale Law Journal, and Yale University Press. He is a frequent lecturer on property at the Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) Law Institute. At Notre Dame, he also serves as a faculty advisor for the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) Program, a faculty fellow at the Research Program on Law and Market Behavior, and a member of the Faculty Board on Athletics.
Before joining the NDLS faculty, Kelly was a clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, an attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and a fellow at Yale and Harvard Law School. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Notre Dame.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Debating the Role of the Chief Justice in Judicial Selection
Woody Cozad, Samuel J. Hais, William J. Placke, Randy Scherr, Tom Walsh
St. Louis Lawyers Chapter
The Federalist Society's St. Louis Lawyers Chapter presented this debate on March 11, 2008. Speakers...
Panel III: The People's Common Law: Is Law & Economics Anti-Democratic?
Robert C. Ellickson, Adam Christopher Pritchard, Brian Simpson, Henry Smith
2008 National Student Symposium
The Federalist Society's Student Division presented this panel at the 2008 Annual Student Symposium on...
Panel III: The People's Common Law: Is Law & Economics Anti-Democratic?
Robert C. Ellickson, Adam Christopher Pritchard, Brian Simpson, Henry Smith
2008 National Student Symposium
The Federalist Society's Student Division presented this panel at the 2008 Annual Student Symposium on...
Panel II: Kelo, Grutter, and Popular Responses to Unpopular Decisions
Sherman Clark, Ward Connerly, Marci A. Hamilton, Robert P. Young
2008 National Student Symposium
The Federalist Society's Student Division presented this panel at the 2008 Annual Student Symposium on...
Panel II: Kelo, Grutter, and Popular Responses to Unpopular Decisions
Sherman Clark, Ward Connerly, Marci A. Hamilton, Robert P. Young
2008 National Student Symposium
The Federalist Society's Student Division presented this panel at the 2008 Annual Student Symposium on...
Welcome and Panel I: Judicial Interference With Community Values
Evan H. Caminker, Craig Chosiad, Maura Corrigan, Richard W. Garnett, Roderick M. Hills, Douglas Laycock, Amy Wax
2008 National Student Symposium
The Federalist Society's Student Division presented this panel at the 2008 Annual Student Symposium on...
Welcome and Panel I: Judicial Interference With Community Values
Evan H. Caminker, Craig Chosiad, Maura Corrigan, Richard W. Garnett, Roderick M. Hills, Douglas Laycock, Amy Wax
2008 National Student Symposium
The Federalist Society's Student Division presented this panel at the 2008 Annual Student Symposium on...
Judicial Confirmations
Michael J. Gerhardt, Simon Heller, Eugene B. Meyer, David G. Savage, Arlen Specter, Michael B. Wallace, Edward Whelan
Professional Responsibility Practice Group and DC Lawyers Chapter
Senator Arlen Specter and a panel of experts examine the state of the judicial nomination...
Judicial Confirmations
Michael J. Gerhardt, Simon Heller, Eugene B. Meyer, David G. Savage, Arlen Specter, Michael B. Wallace, Edward Whelan
Professional Responsibility Practice Group and DC Lawyers Chapter
Senator Arlen Specter and a panel of experts examine the state of the judicial nomination...
Panel II: Post Kelo Reform
David Dana, Steven J. Eagle, James W. Ely, Daniel B. Kelly, Ilya Somin
10th Annual Faculty Conference
This panel discussion took place on January 4, 2008, at the Federalist Society's 10th Annual...