Media Contacts
Vanderbilt has a campus broadcast facility with a dedicated fiber optic line for live TV interviews and a radio ISDN line. Vanderbilt News Service (615-322-2706) has 24/7 on-call information. To arrange an interview, contact Senior Public Affairs Representative Amy Wolf at amy.wolf@vanderbilt.edu.
Mass Torts, Class-Action Lawsuits, Class-Action Reform, Complex Litigation - Richard A. Nagareda, Professor of Law; Director, Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program, has done numerous interviews on complex litigation and mass torts and has commended on class-action litigation involving a wide range of defendants, including pharmaceutical companies, tobacco companies, breast implant manufacturers and fast food chains. He is an expert on the Class-Action Fairness Act, which is attempting to reform the way class-action lawsuits are tried. His book, Mass Torts in a World of Settlement, (Chicago University Press, 2007), addresses contemporary litigation such as that involving Cox-2 inhibitors and efforts to craft asbestos reform litigation. E-mail: richard.nagareda@law.vanderbilt.edu.
Judicial Selection, Impact of Politics on Supreme and Appellate Courts - Tracey George, professor of law, has published innovative empirical research that shows how the United States court system, especially the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, could dramatically change during the Obama administration, during which there is the likelihood that as many as three Supreme Court justices could leave the court. Professor George's research found that lower courts also have a major impact; more than 30,000 cases were decided by courts of appeals in the 2007-08 term as compared to fewer than 80 in the Supreme Court. Email: tracey.george@vanderbilt.edu.
Criminal Law & Procedure, Death Penalty, Insanity Defense, Police Investigation, Surveillance, Juvenile Justice - Chris Slobogin, professor of law, has recently written three books, one on the insanity defense, preventive detention and the death penalty; a second on psychiatric and prediction evidence in criminal cases; and a third on surveillance and records accessing by the government. He is working on a fourth book on juvenile justice. He chaired an ABA task force that investigated the death penalty in Florida. Email: chris.slobogin@vanderbilt.edu.
Corporate and Securities Law, Executive Compensation, Stock Option Plans - Randall Thomas, John S. Beasley II Professor of Law and Business; director, Law & Business Program, has earned a reputation for being one of the most productive and thoughtful corporate and securities law scholars in the nation. His work incorporates his background in economics, includes articles on hedge fund activism, executive compensation, corporate voting, corporate litigation and the structure of firms. A paper, "Hedge Fund Activism, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance," co-authored by Professor Thomas was a finalist for the prestigious Brattle Prize, awarded annually by the Journal of Finance, in 2008. E-mail: randall.thomas@vanderbilt.edu
Payday Lending / Impact of Lottery Winnings on Bankruptcy - Paige Marta Skiba, Assistant Professor of Law & Economics, has published a study in which she and coauthor Jeremy Tobacman found that payday loan applicants who received the quick cash after their first application were significantly more likely to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy than those whose initial application was denied. The researchers found that first-time applicants who received a payday loan were almost twice as likely to file for bankruptcy within two years as those denied the first time. Read the full study, “Do Payday Loans Cause Bankruptcy?” In another study, "The Ticket to Easy Street? The Financial Consequences of Winning the Lottery," Skiba and two coauthors found that winners of large cash prizes did not use winnings to address their indebtedness or increase equity, and thus delayed, rather than avoiding, bankruptcy. Email: paige.skiba@vanderbilt.edu.
Federalism; constitutional law; drug law and policy – Robert Mikos, professor of law, is one of the nation’s top emerging scholars of federalism. His most recent scholarship exposes the unintended consequences stemming from having conflicting state and federal laws governing abortion, illicit drugs, firearms, and other subjects. Mikos has published articles concerning state medical marijuana laws, the states’ role in enforcing federal immigration law, and public support for federalism. E-mail: robert.mikos@vanderbilt.edu.
TRIPS, Copyright and International Intellectual Property Law - Daniel Gervais, professor of law, has a background includes stints at the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization. He can discuss the ways in which the World Trade Organization Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) is being “recalibrated” as developing and developed countries challenge old assumptions. Email: daniel.gervais@vanderbilt.edu.
Law as a Global Commodity - Erin O'Hara, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs addresses an unforeseen byproduct of globalization: the increasing ease with which corporations and individuals can “shop” among various countries and states for the laws most favorable to the actions they want to take, in The Law Market, a book coauthored with Larry Ribstein. Dean O'Hara is an expert on choice of laws and on the influence of law on apology in dispute resolution. Email: erin.ohara@law.vanderbilt.edu.
Constitutional Law; Supreme Court Decisions - Suzanna Sherry, Vanderbilt's Herman O. Loewenstein Professor of Law, is the author of more than 70 books and articles on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. Her most recent book, Judgment Calls, coauthored with Daniel Farber, explores the proper roll of the judiciary. Professor Sherry is considered one of the top scholars in the field of constitutional law and the Supreme Court. Email: suzanna.sherry@vanderbilt.edu.
International Criminal Tribunals, War Crimes, Military Law - Michael A. Newton, professor of the practice of law in Vanderbilt's International Legal Studies Program, is a member of the American Society of International Law’s Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward the International Criminal Court (ICC). Professor Newton helped establish the Iraqi Special Tribunal and led the training in international criminal law for its judges, including holding sessions in Baghdad. His book, Enemy of the State: The Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein, coauthored with Michael P. Scharf, was released in fall 2008. E-mail: mike.newton@vanderbilt.edu
Corporate Law, Corporate Governance - Margaret Blair, professor of law, is a leading scholar in corporate law. A former senior fellow of the Brookings Institute, she is an expert on corporate governance. She had a prior career as a journalist, serving as bureau chief for Business Week magazine in the late 1970s and early 1980s. E-mail: margaret.blair@vanderbilt.edu.
Law and Neuroscience; How the Brain Thinks about Crime and Punishment - Owen Jones, professor of law and of biology, and René Marois, a neuroscientist and associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt, along with neuroscience graduate student Joshua Buckholtz, have released the results of a study in which fMRI images were used to see which areas of the brain were activated when a person judged whether or not someone should be punished for a harmful act and how severely the individual should be punished. Email: owen.jones@vanderbilt.edu.
Medical Ethics, Law and Genetics, Health Legal Issues. Ellen Wright Clayton, Professor of Pediatrics; Professor of Law; Rosalind E. Franklin Professor of Genetics and Health Policy - As a physician and attorney, Dr. Clayton provides a unique perspective to medical ethics issues. Her primary research interest is in the ethical, legal and social implications of recent developments in genetics. She also specializes in medical ethics and legal issues affecting children and families. She has been an active participant in policy debates, advising the National Human Genome Research Institute and numerous bodies concerned with the ethical conduct of research involving human subjects. E-mail: ellen.clayton@vanderbilt.edu.
Health Policy Law, Medical Ethics, Medical Malpractice, Health Care Regulation and Antitrust, Supreme Court Decisions, Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Voting Rights - James Blumstein, University Professor of Constitutional Law and Health Law and Policy; Director, Health Policy Center, Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, has been principal investigator on a number of grants concerning managed care, hospital management and medical malpractice. He co-authored a major study on TennCare, one of the first statewide experiments in universally enrolling Medicaid patients in managed care. He has been elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is co-editor of a leading casebook on health law and policy. He has extensive experience with national media outlets. E-mail: james.blumstein@vanderbilt.edu.
Global Warming, Environmental Law - Mike Vandenbergh, Professor of Law and Director, Vanderbilt Climate Change Research Network, is a leading scholar in environmental law whose research explores the relationship between formal legal regulation and informal social regulation of individual and corporate environmental behavior. His work with Vanderbilt’s Climate Change Research Network involves interdisciplinary teams that focus on the reduction of carbon emissions from the individual and household sector. His corporate work explores the influence of social norms on firm behavior and the ways in which private contracting can enhance or undermine public governance. Email: michael.vandenbergh@vanderbilt.edu .
Administrative Law - Lisa Bressman, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Regulatory Program, is a well-regarded scholar in administrative law and constitutional theory. Her most recent work attempts to combine the insights of positive political theorists with those of legal scholars to better explain and defend administrative law. Her other work explores agency decision making. Email: lisa.bressman@vanderbilt.edu
Civil Rights Law & Employment Law - Robert Belton, Professor of Law, is a leading scholar in the fields of employment law and civil rights law. Before joining the law faculty in 1975, Professor Belton was a nationally prominent civil rights attorney, first as Assistant Counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and then as a partner in one of the first racially integrated law firms in the South. His 2004 casebook (with Avery, Ontiveros and Corrada) on employment discrimination law is the first to extensively integrate critical race and feminist theory in a published set of teaching materials on employment discrimination law. Professor Belton has also authored a number of important articles on employment discrimination law. He is currently writing a book on Griggs v. Duke Power Company, a landmark civil rights case. Email: robert.belton@vanderbilt.edu
