Law, International

Background

Ronald A. Brand was the driving force behind the creation of Pitt’s Center for International Legal Education (CILE) and its Master of Laws Program for Foreign Law Graduates. His reputation as a scholar on international and comparative law has attracted prominent visiting scholars and lecturers from around the world to the University. Brand has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Free University of Brussels, a research scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bologna, and a visiting professor at the University of Augsburg. He represented the United States at Special Commissions and the Diplomatic Conference of the Hague Conference on Private International Law that produced the 2005 Convention on Choice of Court Agreements. He is coauthor of International Civil Dispute Resolution (West Group, 2nd edition, 2008).

Background
Douglas M. Branson, University of Pittsburgh W. Edward Sell Professor of Business Law, specializes in corporate law and securities regulation and is considered one of the top corporate law experts in the United States.

Branson’s reputation as one of the country’s most productive and thoughtful business law scholars has earned him an especially influential role in framing the highly prestigious American Law Institute’s recommendations for corporate governance. In addition, he is considered to be the world’s leading expert on the corporate law aspects of Alaska native corporations.

Most recently, he has been a USAID consultant to the Ministries of Justice in Indonesia, Ukraine, and Slovakia, advising on corporate law, capital markets law, corporate governance, and securitization issues. Branson books include the treatise Corporate Governance (Lexis Law Pub. 1993, with annual supplements), Understanding Corporate Law (Lexis Nexis, 3rd ed. 2009), No Seat at the Table: How Corporate Governance and Law Keep Women Out of the Boardroom (New York University Press, 2006), and The Last Male Bastion – Gender and the CEO Suite at America’s Public Companies (Routledge, 2009).

Background
Jules Lobel is a professor of international and constitutional law in Pitt’s School of Law and vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a national civil and human rights organization. Through the CCR, Lobel has litigated important issues regarding the application of international law in the U.S. courts.

Lobel can address First Amendment issues, including the right to protest. He is editor of a text on civil rights litigation and of a collection of essays on the U.S. Constitution, A Less Than Perfect Union (Monthly Review Press, 1988); author of Success Without Victory: Lost Legal Battles and the Long Road to Justice in America (New York University Press, 2004); and coauthor of the award-winning Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror (The New Press, 2007).