Olin Program in Law and Economics

Saul Levmore has been the Dean of the University of Chicago Law School since 2001. Prior to joining the Chicago faculty in 1998, he was the Brokaw Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and a visiting professor at Yale, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, and Chicago.

William Landes joined the faculty of the Law School in 1974 and was the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics in the Law School from 1992 to 2009. Mr. Landes has written widely on the application of economics and quantitative methods to law and legal institutions, including torts, intellectual property, judicial behavior, legal decision-making, and art law.

Todd Henderson received an engineering degree cum laude from Princeton University in 1993. He worked for several years designing and building dams in California before matriculating at the Law School. While at the Law School, Todd was an Editor of the Law Review and captained the Law School's all-University champion intramural football team.

Jacob Gersen received his A.B. in public policy magna cum laude from Brown University in 1996 and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago in 2001. He graduated from the Law School with high honors in 2004. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and joined the faculty in 2005.

Daniel Fischel received his cum laude from the Law School in 1977. He was Comment Editor of the Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Following his graduation, he clerked for Thomas E. Fairchild, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and then for Justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Richard A. Epstein is the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1972. He has also been the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 2000. Prior to joining the University of Chicago Law School faculty, he taught law at the University of Southern California from 1968 to 1972.

Frank Easterbrook graduated from the Law School in 1973. He was an editor of the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. Before coming to Chicago, he attended Swarthmore College, from which he received a degree in 1970 with high honors. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Kenneth Dam has devoted his career to public policy issues, both as a practitioner and as a professor. In the former capacity he served as deputy secretary (the second-ranking official) in the Department of Treasury (2001–2003) and in the Department of State (1982–1985).

Ronald H. Coase’s 1937 paper “The Nature of the Firm” was to establish the field of transaction cost economics. “The Problem of Social Cost,” published in 1961, sets out what is now known as the Coase Theorem and a new field in economic research, “law and economics.”

After obtaining a BA in economics from the University of Chicago (1986) and a JD from Harvard Law School (1990), Ms. Bernstein served as a clerk for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and was a visiting research fellow in law and economics at Harvard Law School.