H. Jefferson Powell

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H. Jefferson Powell has been professor of Law at Duke University since 1987. In 1999 the Duke Bar Association presented Powell with the Excellence in Small Section Teaching Award, and in the academic year 2001–2002, he was Duke University's Scholar/Teacher of the year. More recently, Powell has been named Frederic Cleaveland Professor of Law and Divinity.

Powell has published several books in the fields of constitutional law and legal history. He has published with presses as diverse as University of Chicago Press, Duke University Press, Carolina Academic Press, and others. He also coauthored a multimedia work, The Contracts Experience a tool for teaching contracts law.

Powell served in both the federal and state governments as a deputy assistant attorney general and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice under President Bill Clinton, and as special counsel to the Attorney General of North Carolina. He has briefed and argued cases in both federal and state courts, including Shaw v. Reno before the Supreme Court of the United States.

A graduate of St. David’s College (now the University of Wales, Lampeter) and of the Yale Law School and Yale Divinity Schools, Professor Powell also has a Ph.D. in Christian theological ethics from Duke University and holds a joint appointment in the Divinity School at Duke.