Property law scholar will give free public lecture on November 5 at UH Law School

Thomas W. Merrill

Thomas W. Merrill, a former Department of Justice Deputy Solicitor General, will give the 2015 Distinguished Gifford Lecture in Real Property at the UH Law School on Thursday, November 5.

The annual free public lecture is sponsored by the Carlsmith Ball law firm.

The lecture, “The Public Trust Doctrine: Some Jurisprudential Variations and Their Implications," is scheduled from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 5, 2015. It will be held in the Moot Courtroom at the William S. Richardson School of Law at 2515 Dole Street. A light reception will follow.

Merrill, an internationally renowned scholar in property and administrative law, is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.  He previously was a professor at Yale Law School and Northwestern University School of Law.

He clerked for Justice Harry Blackmun and Court of Appeals Judge David Bazelon and served in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1987 to 1990.

Law Dean Avi Soifer said it is an honor to have a scholar of Merrill’s caliber to continue the very high level for which this annual lecture series is known. Added Soifer, “The reputation of our own Professor David Callies, holder of the Benjamin A. Kudo Chair at our Law School, plays a major role in attracting these outstanding scholars.  And it truly is a coincidence that Professor Merrill and I discovered that we went to the same high school in Iowa.”

Merrill writes widely in the areas of property and administrative law, and has published several books and more than 75 scholarly articles. Currently, he is working on a book about the role of public rights doctrines in the development of the Chicago lakefront.

Merrill holds undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, and a law degree from the University of Chicago, where he was an Articles Editor of the Law Review.

For more information, visit: https://www.law.hawaii.edu/