MARCI A. HAMILTON

Marci A. Hamilton, lead counsel for the League of Residential Neighborhood Advocates (LRNA), is an internationally recognized constitutional expert specializing in church/state relations, federalism, and representation. She holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. Professor Hamilton has been a Visiting Professor of Law at New York University Law School (2000-2001), a Visiting Scholar at the Princeton Theological Seminary (1997-98); a Fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry (Fall 1997); and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law (Fall 1999). During the spring of 2005, she will be the Reuschlein Distinguished Visiting Professor at Villanova University School of Law
Professor Hamilton has written extensively and lectured frequently in the field. Her recently published works include Federalism and the Public Good: The True Story Behind the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, 78 Indiana L. J. 311 (2002) and Religion, the Rule of Law, and the Good of the Whole: A View from the Clergy, 18 J.L. & Politics 387 (2002). She is a columnist for www.findlaw.com where her column appears every other Thursday.
Professor Hamilton is frequently asked to advise Congress and state legislatures on the constitutionality of pending legislation and to consult in cases involving important constitutional issues. She was lead counsel for the City of Boerne, Texas, in Boerne v. Flores, 520 U.S. 507 (1997), the Supreme Court’s seminal federalism case holing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) unconstitutional and interpreting Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. She is a leading national expert on RFRA and its successor, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and represents a number of city and private clients in church/state disputes. She also has been asked by officials in South Africa, Slovenia, and France to advise them on religious liberty and related issues.
Professor Hamilton clerked for Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the United States Supreme Court and Chief Justice Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She received her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She also received her M.A. in Philosophy and M.A., high honors, in English from Pennsylvania State University, and her B.A., summa cum laude, from Vanderbilt University. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif.