American University Washington College of Law Experts Available to Comment on the Supreme Court Review of the Health Care Law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

To arrange interviews, please contact Megan Smith, (202) 274-4276.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the United States Supreme Court prepares to review the constitutionality of the health care reform law, American University Washington College of Law’s constitutional law, health law, and tax law experts are available to comment on all angles of this multi-faceted issue.

Constitutional Law

Daniel Marcus (Expertise: Courts)

Daniel Marcus is a fellow in law and government at American University Washington College of Law. Prior to joining the faculty, Marcus was general counsel of the 9/11 Commission. He is also a former partner of the Washington law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. During the Carter Administration, Marcus was deputy general counsel of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and general counsel of the Department of Agriculture. He returned to government service in 1998 as senior counsel in the White House Counsel's office. From 1999 to 2001 he held several senior positions at the Department of Justice, including associate attorney general. He has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and also a law clerk for Judge Harold Leventhal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

 

Jamin Raskin (Expertise: Politics)

The Director of WCL’s Program on Law and Government and founder of its acclaimed Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, Jamin Raskin teaches Constitutional Law, First Amendment, the Constitution and Public Education, and Legislation and Political Process. An active constitutional and public interest lawyer, Raskin has represented clients as diverse as Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ross Perot and Greenpeace, and was chairman of Maryland’s State Higher Education Labor Relations Board. As a State Senator in Maryland, Professor Raskin serves on the influential Judicial Proceedings Committee, the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics, the Joint Committee on the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Coast, and the Joint Committee on State-Federal Relations. Raskin’s varied career in public life has included service as: general counsel of the National Rainbow Coalition, a member of President Clinton’s first Transition Team, a state assistant attorney general, and a senior fellow at People for the American Way.

 

Stephen Vladeck (Expertise: Federal vs. State Jurisdiction)

Stephen Vladeck is a professor of law and associate dean for scholarship at American University Washington College of Law, where his teaching and research focus on federal jurisdiction, national security law, constitutional law (especially the separation of powers), and international criminal law. A nationally recognized expert on the role of the federal courts in the war on terrorism, he was part of the legal team that successfully challenged the Bush Administration’s use of military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and has co-authored amicus briefs in a host of other lawsuits challenging the U.S. government’s surveillance and detention of terrorism suspects. Vladeck has also drafted reports on related issues for a number of organizations, including the First Amendment Center, the Constitution Project, and the ABA’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security, and he is a senior editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of National Security Law and Policy.

 

Stephen Wermiel (Expertise: U.S. Supreme Court)

Stephen Wermiel is a fellow in law and government at American University Washington College of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law, First Amendment, Media Law and a seminar on the workings of the U.S. Supreme Court. He is an expert on the life and career of Justice William J. Brennan and co-author of the recently published biography Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion. Wermiel holds expertise in the Supreme Court, having covered the court for the Wall Street Journal from 1979 until 1991. During his 12-year tenure at the Journal, he covered and interpreted more than 1,300 Supreme Court decisions and analyzed trends on a broad array of legal issues. Early in his career, Wermiel was a Washington correspondent for the Boston Globe. He is currently chairman of the editorial board of Human Rights, the magazine of the American Bar Association's Individual Rights & Responsibilities Section, and a member of the editorial board of Communications Lawyer, the journal of the ABA's Forum on Communications Law.

Health Law

Lindsay Wiley

Professor Wiley teaches torts, health law, and public health law. Her current research focuses on access to health care and healthy conditions in the U.S. and globally. She also works on various law and policy issues at the intersection of public health, food systems, and environmental change. Prior to joining the faculty at WCL, Professor Wiley was the Global Health Law Program Director at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. She had also previously worked at the Center for Law and the Public’s Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the American Society for Law, Medicine and Ethics, and Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman LLC in Baltimore, MD. She received her AB and JD from Harvard, where she served on the Harvard Law Review, and her MPH from Johns Hopkins.

Tax Law

Ben Leff

Benjamin Leff teaches courses on U.S. federal tax law and the law of charitable and non-profit organizations. His scholarship focuses on the regulation of nonprofits. Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Leff was a visiting assistant professor at Harvard Law School, practiced tax law in Austin Texas, and clerked in Federal District Court. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, holds an M.A. in religious studies from the University of Chicago and a B.A. from Oberlin College.

 

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American University Washington College of Law

In 1896, American University Washington College of Law became the first law school in the country founded by women. More than 100 years since its founding, this law school community is grounded in the values of equality, diversity, and intellectual rigor. The law school's nationally and internationally recognized programs (in clinical legal education, trial advocacy, international law, and intellectual property to name a few) and dedicated faculty provide its 1700 JD, LL.M., and SJD students with the critical skills and values to have an immediate impact as students and as graduates, in Washington, DC and around the world. For more information, visit wcl.american.edu.