Jonathan Adler to Join the William & Mary Law School Faculty
This summer, William & Mary Law School will add to its environmental, administrative, and constitutional law offerings when legal scholar and commentator Jonathan H. Adler joins the faculty as the Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law.
“It will be a delight to welcome Professor Adler to our faculty,” said A. Benjamin Spencer, Dean and Trustee Professor of Law. “His superb scholarship, willingness to find common ground as a public intellectual, and meticulous care in the classroom will have an enormous effect in our community and the legal community at large.”
Adler comes to William & Mary from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, where he most recently served as the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law.
Adler received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Yale University and his J.D. summa cum laude from the George Mason University School of Law. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 1991 to 2000, he directed the environmental studies program at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
A prolific scholar, Adler has written or edited seven books, including “Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution” (Palgrave, 2023), “Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane” (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), “Business and the Roberts Court” (Oxford University Press, 2016) and “Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform” (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, Yale Journal on Regulation, Wall Street Journal and New York Times, to name just a few. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and the U.S. Supreme Court has cited his work. In 2024, he was identified as the seventh-most-cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law during the previous five years.
Adler is also a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana, and a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. In 2018, he was elected the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances.
Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, “The Volokh Conspiracy.” A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the “PBS Newshour” and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and “Entertainment Tonight.”
In 2004, Adler received the Paul M. Bator Award, given annually by the Federalist Society for Law and Policy Studies to an academic under 40 for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and commitment to students. In 2007, the Case Western Reserve University Law Alumni Association awarded Adler their annual Distinguished Teacher Award.
No stranger to William & Mary, Adler delivered a lecture to the Center for the Study of Law and Markets on February 21, 2018. The talk, “Federal Environmental Regulation Reconsidered,” can be heard on the Law School’s podcast page.
On March 2, 2022, Adler also participated in the Law School’s annual Koch Administrative Law Forum, discussing two Supreme Court opinions involving federal vaccine mandates: National Federation of Independent Business v. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Biden v. Missouri. Learn more.
Originally from Philadelphia, Adler is married and has two daughters. His interest in the environment goes back to attending an experimental school that allowed him to spend one day a week on a farm. Family trips to New Hampshire made him an expert in camping, fishing, and hunting.
“It's very exciting to join this community of scholars and a school with such a long and rich tradition,” Adler said. “I am honored to be the next Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and look forward to helping students on their journey toward becoming accomplished lawyers.”