As published by Yahoo
John Marshall Law School Professor Samuel Olken has been named The Edward T. and Noble W. Lee Chair in Constitutional Law for the 2016-2017 academic year.
As Lee Chair Olken will research, write and speak on constitutional law and will specifically focus on Chief Justice John Marshall’s use of the preamble to interpret the interstices of the Constitution.
Olken is the sixth professor to receive the honor. Professor Steven D. Schwinn, who was the previous Lee Chair, focused his research on the right to a remedy for torture.
“I am grateful to hold the Lee Chair in Constitutional law this academic year,” Olken said.
Edward T. Lee and his son, Noble W. Lee, collectively served The John Marshall Law School for 90 years, leading the school as deans for 65 of those years. The Lee Chair in Constitutional Law was established in 2010 to honor their contributions to the law school and the legal profession, and their shared interest in constitutional law.
Olken will kick off his year-long position with an interactive discussion on Chief Justice John Marshall and the preamble of the Constitution. Olken is interested in having a conversation specifically about how Justice Marshall used the preamble to interpret the interstices of the U.S. Constitution.
Prior to joining the John Marshall faculty, Olken practiced business law in Boston. He also served as a litigation associate with firms in Los Angeles and New Jersey.
In 1991, the Supreme Court Historical Society awarded Olken its prestigious Hughes-Gossett Prize for outstanding historical scholarship. He was the chair of the “Symposium on Chief Justice John Marshall and the United States Supreme Court: 1801–1835,” hosted April 2000 by John Marshall. He was also the chair of the fall 2003 symposium, “Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review: Legitimacy, Tyranny, and Democracy.”
Olken’s primary research interests are constitutional history and judicial biography. He has written articles about Chief Justices John Marshall and Charles Evans Hughes, and most recently, Associate Justice George Sutherland. In addition, he has written extensively about the New Deal Court, nineteenth-and early twentieth-century economic regulation, judicial review and the First Amendment.
Olken joined the faculty in 1989. He teaches Constitutional Law I and II, Constitutional Theory and American Constitutional History.
