Randy E. Barnett

Randy E. Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center and is the Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, as well as the President of the Florida-based Foundation for the Constitution. After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, he tried many felony cases as a criminal prosecutor in Chicago. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies and the Bradley Prize, Professor Barnett has been a visiting professor at Penn, Northwestern and Harvard Law School.

Professor Barnett’s publications include thirteen books, more than one hundred and fifty articles and reviews, as well as numerous op-eds. His most recent book is “A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist” (2024). He is now finishing a sequel entitled, “Felony Review: True Tales of Fighting Crime and Corruption in Chicago,” which chronicles his time as a criminal prosecutor Cook County State's Attorney's Office.

In 2004, he argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzalez v. Raich ("Raytch") before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2012, he was one of the lawyers representing the National Federation of Independent Business in its constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act in NFIB v. Sebelius. He’s appeared in numerous documentaries and portrayed a prosecutor in the 2010 science-fiction feature film, “InAlienable: The Movie.”