Professor Samuel Bray receives the Joseph Story Award from the Federalist Society
Professor Samuel L. Bray received the 2019 Joseph Story Award from The Federalist Society on Saturday during the 2019 National Student Symposium in Phoenix, Arizona.
“I’m deeply honored to receive this award,” Professor Bray said. “I admire the jurist the award is named after, Justice Joseph Story—a great judge and learned commentator on the Constitution and equity. And I admire the Federalist Society’s commitment to robust debate and free speech, which is essential not only in a university setting but also to the legal profession.”
The Joseph Story Award, the successor to the Paul M. Bator Award and named for Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, is given annually to a legal scholar under 40 who has demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and made a significant public impact in a manner that advances the rule of law in a free society. Notre Dame Law Professor Nicole Stelle Garnett won the Bator Award in 2009.
Bray joined the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 2018. Before coming to Notre Dame, he was an assistant professor of law at UCLA from 2011 to 2016, and a professor of law from 2016 to 2018. In addition, he was a Harrington Faculty Fellow at the University of Texas-Austin for the 2016-2017 academic year.
Bray’s scholarly pursuits focus on remedies, equity, constitutional law, and the intersection between law and language. He testified about national injunctions before the House Judiciary Committee in 2017 and co-authored a piece about national injunctions for The Atlantic in 2018. The Federalist Society also featured him in a video, embedded below, in which he explains national injunctions.
In addition to numerous articles and essays in law reviews, he is an author of three books: Genesis 1–11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Translators (with John F. Hobbins in 2017); Ames, Chafee, and Re on Remedies (with Emily Sherwin) (2d ed. 2018); and The Constitution of the United States (with Michael Stokes Paulsen, Steven Gow Calabresi, Michael W. McConnell, and William Baude) (1st ed. 2010; 2d ed. 2013; 3d ed. 2016).
“Sam Bray is a gifted teacher and generous colleague who has become an intellectual leader of the faculty in his short time at Notre Dame,” said Nell Jessup Newton, the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School. “We are all delighted that he has been given the Justice Story award this year.”
Bray is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, and he clerked for then-Judge Michael W. McConnell on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. After clerking, he practiced law at Mayer Brown LLP, was an associate-in-law at Columbia Law School, and was executive director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School.
Read more about Bray's award on The Federalist Society website and at The Volokh Conspiracy.