Professor Thomas W. Merrill

March 16, 2010

Lewis & Clark Law presents a public lecture by this year’s Higgins Distinguished Visitor, Professor Thomas W. Merrill, Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School. The lecture, titled “Three Modes of Interpretation: Analysis and a Plea for Synthesis” will take place at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at Lewis & Clark Law School, LRC, Student Lounge with a reception to follow.

Thomas W. Merrill was previously a professor of law at Yale Law School and Northwestern University School of Law.

He served as Deputy Solicitor General in the Department of Justice from 1987 to 1990. Professor Merrill has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, and a law degree from the University of Chicago.

He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun).

Professor Merrill is the author of several books and over 75 scholarly articles, and devotes most of his scholarly energies to topics involving property and administrative law.

He often files briefs in cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, most frequently in cases involving takings of property and federal preemption of state law.