Baylen Linnekin, "Food Freedom"

With commentary by Professor Ben-Shahar

Baylen J. Linnekin is a licensed attorney and is the founder and executive director of Keep Food Legal Foundation, a Washington, DC-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that promotes food freedom of choice—the right of every American to grow, raise, produce, buy, sell, share, cook, eat, and drink the foods of their own choosing. He serves as an adjunct professor at George Mason University Law School and an adjunct faculty member at American University, where his teaching focuses largely on contemporary food-policy issues. Along with faculty from Harvard Law School, UCLA Law School, and elsewhere, Linnekin is one of six founding board members of the new Academy of Food Law & Policy. He is currently writing his first book, which focuses on the ways that government policies often thwart sustainable food practices, for Island Press. He is also serving as an expert witness in an ongoing First Amendment food-labeling lawsuit. Linnekin’s writings on Food Law & Policy, Constitutional Law, and Legal History have appeared in many scholarly publications and he writes a weekly food-law column for Reason magazine’s website and has authored opinion pieces that have been published by the New York Post, Baltimore Sun, Huffington Post, VICE, and many other publications. Linnekin earned an LL.M. in agricultural and food law from the University of Arkansas School of Law, a J.D. from Washington College of Law, an M.A. in learning sciences from Northwestern University, and a B.A. in sociology from American University. He lives in the Washington, DC area with his partner of more than two decades.

Omri Ben-Shahar earned his PhD in Economics and SJD from Harvard in 1995 and his BA and LLB from the Hebrew University in 1990. Before coming to Chicago, he was the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Michigan. Prior to that, he taught at Tel-Aviv University, was a member of Israel's Antitrust Court and clerked at the Supreme Court of Israel. He teaches contracts, sales, insurance Law,  consumer law, e-commerce, food and drug law, law and economics, and game theory and the law. He writes in the fields of contract law and consumer protection. He is the co-author of More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure (Princeton 2014). Ben-Shahar is the Kearny Director of the Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics, and the Editor of the Journal of Legal Studies. He is also the Co-Reporter with Oren Bar-Gill for the Restatement Third of Consumer Contracts.

This event was recorded on April 16, 2015, and was presented by the Food and Drug Law Society and the Federalist Society.