The American Law Institute Elects Five Council Members
PHILADELPHIA – At this week’s 2021 Annual Meeting, The American Law Institute’s membership elected five new members to its Council, effective June 9, 2021. The ALI Council determines projects and activities to be undertaken by the ALI and approves the work as representing the position of the Institute.
The new Council members are Roberto J. Gonzalez of Paul Weiss, Eric A. Posner of University of Chicago Law School, Virginia A. Seitz of Sidley Austin, Laura Denvir Stith of the Supreme Court of Missouri, and Larry D. Thompson of Finch McCranie.
Short biographies of ALI’s new Council members can be found below. Complete biographies are available on the ALI website.
Roberto J. Gonzalez is a partner at Paul Weiss, representing financial institutions and other companies in high-stakes litigation, investigations and advisory matters spanning the areas of economic sanctions, anti-money laundering, export controls, antitrust, the False Claims Act, consumer financial protection and cybersecurity and data privacy. He served as a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Eric A. Posner is the Kirkland & Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. His research interests include financial regulation, antitrust law, and constitutional law. He has written a dozen books and more than a hundred academic articles on law and legal theory. His latest book, How Antitrust Failed Workers, will be published in the summer of 2021.
Virginia A. Seitz is a partner in Sidley Austin’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice. On behalf of a wide range of clients, she has handled cases in the United States Supreme Court, in virtually all federal courts of appeals, and in state appellate courts. Seitz returned to Sidley in 2014 after serving in the Senate-confirmed position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice. She was the first woman to be confirmed to that position. Seitz clerked at the Supreme Court of the United States for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Laura Denvir Stith began serving as a judge on the Supreme Court of Missouri in 2001 and assumed senior judge status on March 8, 2021. She was elected by her fellow Supreme Court justices to serve a two-year term as Chief Justice, from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2009, becoming the second woman to serve as Missouri’s highest-ranking jurist. Stith served as a law clerk for Chief Justice Robert Seiler of the Missouri Supreme Court and then entered private practice in Kansas City, Missouri, where she was an associate and then partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon.
Larry D. Thompson joined Finch McCranie in July 2015, and is the former U.S. Deputy Attorney General (2001-2003). In a distinguished public and private sector career over more than three decades, Thompson also has prosecuted complex cases as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, directed internal investigations and defended individuals and businesses in special matters as a partner in a major law firm, and served as General Counsel and Senior Vice President of PepsiCo, Inc.
Additionally, at the Annual Meeting Kathryn A. Oberly, former Associate Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, took emeritus status. Emeritus Council members often continue to participate in Council meetings.
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About The American Law Institute
The American Law Institute is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and improve the law. The ALI drafts, discusses, revises, and publishes Restatements of the Law, Model Codes, and Principles of Law that are enormously influential in the courts and legislatures, as well as in legal scholarship and education.
By participating in the Institute’s work, its distinguished members have the opportunity to influence the development of the law in both existing and emerging areas, to work with other eminent lawyers, judges, and academics, to give back to a profession to which they are deeply dedicated, and to contribute to the public good.
For more information about The American Law Institute, visit www.ali.org.
