Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Sam Gedge is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice. He joined IJ in June 2015 and litigates cases to promote economic liberty, protect political speech, and secure individuals’ rights to private property.
In 2017, Sam was named IJ’s second Elfie Gallun Fellow for Freedom and the Constitution. The fellowship comes with an emphasis on publishing written materials and speaking to students and others about the vital role the U.S. Constitution plays in protecting our most precious freedoms.
In his time at IJ, Sam has launched cases battling civil forfeiture and overzealous licensing boards, which generated widespread coverage and conversation in media outlets from Wired and The Atlantic to London’s Daily Mail.
Before joining IJ, Sam was an attorney at Wiley Rein LLP, in Washington, D.C., where he focused on litigation and election law. He is a former law clerk to Judge Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Sam received his law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2010.
Attorney, Institute for Justice
John Wrench is a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Institute for Justice.
John grew up outside of Ithaca, New York, and received his law degree from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 2019. During law school, he served as editor in chief of the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law and was a member of the Federalist Society. John interned in his law school’s First Amendment Litigation Clinic and was a judicial extern to the Honorable Paul E. Davison in the Southern District of New York. John graduated from Pace University in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Religious Studies.
Nusbaum Professor of Law and Business, New York University School of Law
Professor William Allen moved to New York University School of Law in 1997, following twelve years as Chancellor of the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, widely considered the leading trial court in the US for questions of business and corporation law. At the NYU, Allen is the Nusbaum Professor of Law & Business and serves on both the Law School faculty and as Clinical Professor of Business in the Finance Department of the Stern School of Business. At NYU he founded the Pollack Center for Law & Business to serve as a bridge between the students and faculty of the Law School and the Stern School of Business. See www.stern.nyu.edu/clb.
The author of various articles on corporate law and corporate governance, Allen teaches Corporation Law, Corporate Governance, Law and Business of Corporate Transactions, and Mergers and Acquisitions at both the Law School and Stern. He organizes a seminar series on Law & Finance at the Stern School in the Spring. Through the Pollack Center for Law & Business Allen originated the Advanged Professional Certificate in Law & Business, a summer program to enable law students to get graduate level training in business; organizes a speaker series in which senior business and legal professionals come to campus, and, jointly with the University of Pennsylvania organizes an annual academic conference on topics in Law & Finance.
Allen also has an academic and professional interest in international commercial arbitration. He serves as counsel to the New York law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, with whom he consults concerning questions of corporate law and governance.
Retired Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. Chair in Corporate Governance, University of Delaware
Professor Elson is the Edgar S. Woolard, Jr., Chair in Corporate Governance and the Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. He is also "Of Counsel" to the law firm of Holland & Knight. He formerly served as a Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida from 1990 until 2001. His fields of expertise include corporations, securities regulation and corporate governance. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School, and has served as a law clerk to Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III and Elbert P. Tuttle of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, the Cornell Law School, and the University of Maryland School of Law, and is a Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. and a member of the American Law Institute. Professor Elson has written extensively on the subject of boards of directors. He is a frequent contributor on corporate governance issues to various scholarly and popular publications. He served on the National Association of Corporate Directors' Commissions on Director Compensation, Director Professionalism, CEO Succession, Audit Committees, Strategic Planning and Director Evaluation, was a member of its Best Practices Council on Coping With Fraud and Other Illegal Activity, and presently serves on that organization’s Advisory Council. He is Vice Chairman of the ABA Business Law Section’s Committee on Corporate Governance and a member of its Committee on Corporate Laws. Additionally, Professor Elson served as an adviser and consultant to Towers Perrin, the international human resource management consultants, a director of Circon Corporation, a medical products maker; Sunbeam Corporation, the consumer products manufacturer; Nuevo Energy Company, an independent oil and natural gas producer, the Investor Responsibility Research Center, a non-profit corporate governance research organization, Alderwoods Group, an international death care services provider and is presently, a member of the Board of Directors of AutoZone, Inc., the national automobile parts retailer, HealthSouth Corporation, a healthcare services provider.
Open Questions in Lieu v. Federal Election Commission: Due Process, Adverseness, & Article III Standing
Sam Gedge, John Wrench
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Corporate Responsiblity, Business Ethics, and Professional Responsiblity
Edward Labaton, Frank Newman, Anthony J. Horan, William T. Allen, Charles Elson
Following are excerpts from a panel discussion on corporate governance from the Fourth Annual Conference on...