Steve Vladeck

Steve Vladeck (Bluesky – LinkedIn – X) is a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts; the Supreme Court; national security law; and military justice.

Vladeck is author of the New York Times-bestselling book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” which has won numerous awards, including the 2024 Order of the Coif Book Award. Vladeck is also a highly regarded appellate advocate, having argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous lower federal civilian and military courts. He has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession—including the 2024 University of Texas President’s Research Impact Award and his selection by the Order of the Coif to serve as its Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2025.

Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court. He is also a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is a member of the Board of Trustees of Amherst College (from which he received his B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics in 2001) and EarthJustice—the nation’s premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.

Vladeck graduated from Yale Law School in 2004—where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for outstanding moot court oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for best moot court team performance. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. A native New Yorker and hopeless Mets fan, Vladeck lives in the District with his wife, Karen (Founder and Managing Partner of Risepoint Search Partners); their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney; and their eleven-year-old pug, Roxanna.

Areas of Expertise: Constitutional Law, National Security Law, Federal Jurisdiction, International Criminal Law, Surveillance, Detention, Federal Courts, Military Commissions

Selected Media Appearances
Television
Criticism Over Terror Suspect Killing – WUSA (9 News Now at 11)
Espionage Act and Whistle-Blowers – C-SPAN (Washington Journal)

Radio
Amnesty International: US drone strikes are ‘unlawful,’ demands victim reparations – KPCC (Airtalk)
Legal Questions Over Special Ops Raids– WBUR (Here & Now)
White House Issues New Rules on al Qaida Suspects – NPR (All Things Considered)

Online
Massive NSA cellphone-tracking program snares some Americans, too – The Christian Science Monitor 
Taking the “Meh” out of Metadata – Slate
The Best Evidence Yet That Government Surveillance Oversight Is Nowhere Near Adequate – Slate
It’s time to fix the FISA Court (the way Congress intended) – MSNBC