Professor Jason Solomon Delivers the 2011 Blackstone Lecture
Professor Jason Solomon gave the 2011 Blackstone Lecture on March 24 at the William & Mary Law School. The lecture was titled, “Tort Law, Social Equality, and the Right to Recourse.”
“At a time of continued debate over tort reform at the state level and federal preemption of state tort law,” Solomon said, “the role of civil justice in a society committed to equality warrants further exploration.” Solomon defended the importance of the right to civil recourse for wrongs in promoting equal accountability among citizens, and placed the institution of tort law among other political and social institutions that serve to instantiate various forms of equality. “Civil recourse advances interpersonal equality precisely by the state giving individuals the authority to make demands of others, and also the obligation to respond to those demands,” he noted.
Solomon joined the William & Mary faculty in 2010 from the University of Georgia School of Law, where he taught for five years and received the John C. O'Byrne Memorial Student-Faculty Award. One of the nation's outstanding young tort law scholars, he has published several articles in leading journals, including in the Northwestern, Texas, Wisconsin, and Vanderbilt law reviews. His scholarship focuses on the theory and practice of civil justice, and his research interests also include regulatory theory and policy, and the law of the workplace. He currently teaches Torts, Employment Law, and Administrative Law at the Law School.
Prior to entering academia, Solomon served as Chief of Staff to the President of Harvard University, and clerked for Judge Chester Straub of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge John Gleeson of the Eastern District of New York. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar and Notes Editor on the Columbia Law Review. Before law school, he worked in the White House and U.S. Treasury Department under President Clinton.
The Blackstone Lecture Series was established in 1996 to recognize the scholarly achievements of younger members of the William & Mary Law School faculty. The series is made possible through the generosity of Law School alumni.