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The American Law Institute Elects Four Council Members

PHILADELPHIA – At this week’s 96th Annual Meeting, The American Law Institute’s membership elected four new members to its Council, which 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 Allison H. Eid of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, Daniel C. Girard of Girard Sharp LLP, Thomas M. Hardiman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School.

“I am pleased the membership voted today to elect these highly respected and accomplished judges and lawyers to the Institute’s Council,” said ALI President David F. Levi. “These new Council members—two judges, a practicing lawyer, and a law professor—in the tradition of ALI, will bring their expertise and different perspectives to our important work.”

Short biographies of ALI’s new Council members can be found below. Complete biographies are available on the ALI website.

Allison H. Eid is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Prior to joining the Tenth Circuit, Judge Eid served as a Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, where she chaired the Water Court Committee and served as the state court representative to the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. Before being named to the Colorado Supreme Court, she served as the Solicitor General of the State of Colorado.

Judge Eid practiced commercial and appellate litigation with the Denver office of Arnold & Porter. She clerked for the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and for Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Daniel C. Girard is the managing partner of Girard Sharp LLP, a San Francisco-based law firm. He represents plaintiffs in class action lawsuits, and has served as lead attorney in a range of cases, including class actions arising under the securities, commodities, antitrust, predatory lending, telecommunications, privacy and civil rights laws.

Mr. Girard is a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure. He served on the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules from 2004 to 2010 and on the Advisory Board of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System from 2007 to 2016.

Thomas M. Hardiman was nominated by President George W. Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on January 9, 2007 and was confirmed by the Senate (95-0) on March 15, 2007. Prior to becoming a circuit judge, he served as a trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Before taking the bench in 2003, Judge Hardiman was in private practice from 1990 to 2003.

In 2008, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Information Technology Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Judge Hardiman was appointed Chairman of the IT Committee in 2013, and he continues to serve in that capacity.

Pamela S. Karlan is the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and a founder and co-director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School. Her primary scholarship involves constitutional litigation, particularly with respect to voting rights and antidiscrimination law. 

After clerking for U.S. District Court Judge Abraham Sofaer and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, she practiced law at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, focusing on employment discrimination and voting rights. She also served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. There, she received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service (the Department’s highest award for employee performance) for work in implementing the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor and the John Marshall Award for Providing Legal Advice for her work on Title VII and gender identity.

Additionally, at the Annual Meeting Elizabeth J. Cabraser of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, Carolyn B. Lamm of White & Case, Margaret H. Marshall of Choate Hall & Stewart, and Douglas Laycock of the University of Texas School of Law 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.

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