An Antitrust Professor on the Bench - Judge Douglas Ginsburg Liber Amicorum Conference

Opening Keynote Speech : Joshua Wright

Joshua D. WRIGHT (University Professor and Executive Director, Global Antitrust Institute) contributor and author of the Liber Amicorum foreword offered opening remarks. Professor Wright highlighted Judge Ginsburg’s remarkable career from professor to regulator, from Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division to Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Professor Wright shared Judge Ginsburg’s influence upon his own career as a mentor, collaborator, and friend.

Judge Ginsburg has been an antitrust innovator in three different fora : as a judge, as a regulator, and as a teacher. Judge Ginsburg’s jurisprudence established him as one of the most influential jurists focused upon integrating economic analysis into the law. Judge Ginsburg’s tenure coincided with a shift in antitrust jurisprudence from inconsistent and occasionally illogical, to the more economically coherent approach that characterizes the discipline today. Judge Ginsburg’s contributions in well known cases like Microsoft and Polygram demonstrate his commitment not only to economic analysis in particular cases, but also to establishing a sound legal framework to organize economic evidence.