Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Senior Counsel and Director of Strategic Engagement, Alliance Defending Freedom
Jordan Lorence serves as senior counsel and director of strategic engagement with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he plays a key role with the Strategic Relations & Training Team. His work has encompassed a broad range of litigation, with a primary focus on religious liberty, free speech, student privacy, conscience rights of creative professionals, and the First Amendment freedoms of public university students and professors.
Lorence argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the precedent-setting Southworth v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System case in 1999, challenging the university’s requirement that forced unwilling students to contribute to campus activist groups. He led the challenge to New York City’s ban on private worship services after hours in vacant public school buildings in the long-running Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York case. Lorence also defended the right of conscience in Elane Photography v. Willock at the New Mexico Supreme Court.
Lorence has made media appearances on television and radio shows including Fox News, NBC’s Today Show, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His commentary has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, The Hill, and National Review.
Before officially joining the organization in 2001, Lorence was a productive allied attorney for many years, actively involved in significant litigation for ADF. He has also worked for the Home School Legal Defense Association, Concerned Women for America, and the American Center for Law and Justice. Lorence earned a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and received a B.A. in journalism from Stanford University. He is admitted to the bar in Minnesota, Virginia, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, and multiple federal appellate and district courts.
H.H. Macaulay Endowed Professor of Economics, Clemson College of Business
Thomas Hazlett is the Hugh H. Macaulay Endowed Professor of Economics at Clemson University. He has previously held faculty positions at George Mason University, the University of California, Davis, and the Wharton School, and served as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission. A noted expert in regulatory economics and information markets, his research has appeared in academic forums such as the Journal of Law & Economics, RAND Journal of Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Columbia Law Review. He has also written for such popular periodicals as the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Slate, the N.Y. Times, N.Y. Daily News, Reuters.com, Business Week, The New Republic and the Financial Times. His most recent book, The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone, (Yale, 2017), was featured as one of the top tech books of the year at CES 2018.
Associate Dean for Administration and Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law
Garwood Visiting Professor and Visiting Fellow, James Madison Pr, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
David F. Forte is Professor of Law at Cleveland State University, where he was the inaugural holder of the Charles R. Emrick, Jr.- Calfee Halter & Griswold Endowed Chair. This fall, Professor Forte will be the Garwood Visiting Professor at Princeton University in the Department of Politics, and Visiting Fellow at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He holds degrees from Harvard College, Manchester University, England, the University of Toronto and Columbia University.
During the Reagan administration, Professor Forte served as chief counsel to the United States delegation to the United Nations and alternate delegate to the Security Council. He has authored a number of briefs before the United States Supreme Court, and has frequently testified before the United States Congress and consulted with the Department of State on human rights and international affairs issues. His advice was specifically sought on the approval of the Genocide Convention, on world-wide religious persecution, and Islamic extremism. He has appeared and spoken frequently on radio and television, both nationally and internationally. In 2002, the Department of State sponsored a speaking tour for Professor Forte in Amman, Jordan, and he was also a featured speaker to the Meeting of Peoples in Rimini, Italy, a meeting which gathers over 500,000 people from all over Europe. He has also been called to testify before the state legislatures of Ohio, Kansas, and Idaho as well as the New York City Council. He has assisted in drafting a number of pieces of legislation for the Ohio General Assembly dealing with abortion, international trade, and federalism. He has sat as acting judge on the municipal court of Lakewood Ohio and was chairman of Professional Ethics Committee of the Cleveland Bar Association. He has received a number of awards for his public service, including the Cleveland Bar Association’s President’s Award, the Cleveland State University Award for Distinguished Service, the Cleveland State University Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Alumni Award for Faculty Excellence. He served as Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family under Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In 2003, Dr. Forte was a Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the University of Trento and returned there in 2004 as a Visiting Professor. For the academic year, 2008-2009, Professor Forte was Senior Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Religion and the Constitution in at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the Robert E. Henderson Constitution Day Lecturer at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, and he has given over 300 invited addresses and papers at more than 100 academic institutions. His work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor Forte was a Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation, and Visiting Scholar at the Liberty Fund. He has been President of the Ohio Association of Scholars, was on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Society, and is also adjunct Scholar at the Ashbrook Center. He has been appointed to the Ohio State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He has also been a Civil War re-enactor and a Merit Badge Counselor for the Boy Scouts.
He writes and speaks nationally on topics such as constitutional law, religious liberty, Islamic law, the rights of families, and international affairs. He served as book review editor for the American Journal of Jurisprudence and has edited a volume entitled, Natural Law and Contemporary Public Policy, published by Georgetown University Press. His book, Islamic Law Studies: Classical and Contemporary Applications, has been published by Austin & Winfield. He is Senior Editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (2006), 2d edition (2014), published by Regnery & Co, a clause by clause analysis of the Constitution of the United States.
His teaching competencies include Constitutional Law, the First Amendment, Islamic Law, Jurisprudence, Natural Law, International Law, International Human Rights, the Presidency, and Constitutional History.
Associate Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School
Combining his training in law and medicine, Ryan Abbott has served as a consultant on health care policy and regulation, intellectual property, health care financing, and clinical research design for international organizations, academic institutions and private enterprises including the World Health Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization and University of California, Los Angeles. A licensed physician, attorney, patent agent and acupuncturist, he has considerable experience in the fields of public health, food and drug law, as well as technology transfer and development. Beginning with the Fall 2012 academic year, he brings that expertise to the Southwestern faculty.
After earning both his undergraduate and Master of Traditional Oriental Medicine degrees, summa cum laude, Professor Abbott went on to complete his M.D. degree at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, where he received the Weiss Medical Research Scholarship for research in Preventive Medicine. He also pursued his law degree at Yale Law School, where he was Editor and Submissions Editor of Yale Journal of Law and Technology and Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics, and the recipient of the Kirby Simon Fellowship for International Human Rights Work.
Just prior to joining Southwestern, Professor Abbott was a Resident Physician in Internal Medicine at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, and recently served as Director of Research and Project Management at Nova Worldwide Consulting, a firm specializing in technical assistance and advice to governments and international organizations on the design and implementation of legislation and programs with respect to international trade, industrial development and intellectual property rights, and as Principal Investigator of biomedical research studies at UCLA.
Professor Abbott enjoys sharing his experience with his students. "As someone with a background in both law and medicine, I hope to provide students with a multidisciplinary approach to considering the complex issues they will face as attorneys," Professor Abbott explains. "This will help students to consider client issues from a variety of perspectives. Health care law is an important subject for lawyers; health care spending now makes up more than 18 percent of GDP, and a growing number of attorneys are finding health care related employment."
Professor Abbott has published widely on issues associated with health care law and intellectual property protection in legal, medical and scientific peer-reviewed journals. His current research is in the field of Bioinformatics, focused on the intellectual property implications of innovations related to human biological processes.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Dean and CEO, Southwestern Law School
A legal education trailblazer many times over, Susan Westerberg Prager is Southwestern's 11th Dean and Chief Executive Officer, and the first woman in the history of the law school to serve in the post. She joined Southwestern in Fall 2013 following five years as Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). Dean Prager previously served in several leadership positions in higher education, including 16 years as Dean of UCLA School of Law.
"Southwestern is a remarkable place, with a rich tradition of making a difference in the futures of its students," Dean Prager said. "The law school's innovative and collaborative spirit is part of its DNA. The faculty and countless graduates are committed to helping today's students contribute to the complex and challenging worlds they will occupy as professionals. I feel privileged to have been asked to lead Southwestern Law School at this challenging and exciting time in legal education."
Early in her career, Dean Prager worked for California's senior U.S. Senator and minority whip Thomas Kuchel, Congressman Pete McCloskey, and California Assemblyman John Veneman from Modesto. She went on to complete her J.D. degree at UCLA School of Law, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of theUCLA Law Review.
Dean Prager practiced law in North Carolina and then returned to her alma mater in 1972 as a member of the UCLA law faculty, teaching in the areas of community property, family law, wills and trusts, and historic preservation. When she was named Dean a decade later, she was the first female law dean in the University of California system and one of only two women serving in that capacity in the entire country. She served from 1982 to 1998, the longest tenure of any law dean in UCLA history, and was also the first UCLA graduate to serve in the post.
Dean Prager worked with the UCLA law faculty and university administration to strengthen the intellectual environment and operation of the law school. She cultivated a culture of excellence in both research and teaching, furthered diversity within the student body, and oversaw the appointment of dynamic new faculty and endowed chair holders. She enhanced the curriculum in areas such as international, environmental, public interest, entertainment and corporate law, and spearheaded the expansion of the clinical program. Her legacy includes two major building projects, the Clinical Wing and the Hugh & Hazel Darling Law Library, as well as major advancements in technology, the launch of the law school's first major fundraising efforts, and the successful completion of one of the University of California's first major building project public-private partnerships. Upon her departure from the deanship, the law school established a named faculty chair in her honor.
While at UCLA, Dean Prager became the second woman ever elected as President of the AALS, and also served on the governing boards of the Law School Admission Council and the Council of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
In 1999, Dean Prager left the legal academy to pursue other opportunities in higher education, serving as Provost of Dartmouth College and as President of Occidental College in Los Angeles. In 2008, she was named Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the AALS, the nation's principal representative of America's law schools and the scholarly society of the law teaching profession. As the top administrator of the organization, she worked with the volunteer executive board and faculty committees in evaluating schools for membership and providing programs designed to enhance law deans, faculty and administrators' effectiveness, including the AALS Annual Meeting, the largest gathering of law professors in the world. Under her leadership, the AALS furthered its core values; brought issues of importance to law schools before legislative bodies, courts and administrative agencies; and influenced the debate over the standards for law school accreditation.
Dean Prager was a trustee of Stanford University for 14 years, and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Mutual Holding Company (Pacific Life) since 1979, the Access Group (non-profit student loan corporation) and the American Council on Legal Education, and was a member of the California Commission on Campaign Financing and the California Community Colleges Commission on Innovation. An outspoken advocate for intellectual and racial diversity throughout her career, Dean Prager has counseled community groups and legislators and testified before congressional subcommittees in the affirmative action debate.
The recipient of the Los Angeles Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund's (MALDEF) 1997 Legal Services Award, Dean Prager was honored with the Los Angeles Israel Cancer Research Fund's Women of Action Award (1996), and the Madrina Award of the UCLA Latino Alumni Association (1998). On the occasion of the conclusion of her tenure as Dean, the UCLA Law Alumni Association presented her with its first Lifetime Achievement Award. She later received The Edward A. Dickson Award, the highest award of the greater UCLA Alumni Association.
Can a Textualist Approach to the Constitution Create a More Limited Government?
Los Angeles Lawyers Chapter & Southwestern Law School Student Chapter
Los Angeles, CADue Process on College Campuses
Orange County Lawyers Chapter
Irvine, CASupreme Court Preview
Trinity Lutheran
Topics
Should the government be able to read your emails?
[VIDEO]: Southwestern Law School’s Visiting Associate Professor Amy Peikoff explains the Third Party Doctrine of...
Supreme Court Preview
Net Neutrality
Southwestern Student Chapter
Los Angeles, CAThe Politically Correct University
FDA Involvement in Off-Label Drug Use
Ryan Abbott, Richard A. Epstein, Susan Prager
On January 13, 2014 the Southwestern Law School Federalist Society student chapter hosted a debate...
A New Federalism