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Professor William R. Casto

William R. Casto Casto, William R.
Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Law, 1983
(806) 742-3990 x225
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Admitted to practice in Tennessee.

William Richard Casto is a Paul Whitfield Horn University Professor, which is the highest honor that the University may bestow on members of its faculty. He also has served as a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Alabama, the University of Connecticut, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Tennessee. He is a member of the American Law Institute. Texas Tech has also honored him with the Texas Tech President's Academic Achievement Award and the President's Excellence in Teaching Award.

Currently, he is working on a book dealing with the nature of the attorney advisory process in government. The United States Supreme Court has cited his works many times and has expressly adopted his interpretation of a troubling statute dealing with foreign affairs and international law.

He has written three well-received books: The Supreme Court in the Early Republic, Oliver Ellsworth and the Creation of the Federal Republic, and Foreign Affairs and the Constitution in the Age of Fighting Sail. Professor Casto has written articles on judicial review, foreign policy, and the relationship between religion and public life in the Founding Era.

Degrees

B.A., University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 1970

J.D., 1973

J.S.D., Columbia University, 1983

Courses

Federal Courts, Contracts, Conflict of Laws, National Security Law

Selected Publications

Foreign Affairs and the Constitution in the Age of Fighting Sail. ( University of South Carolina Press, 2006).

Oliver Ellsworth and the Creation of the Federal Republic. (Second Circuit Committee on History and Commemorative Events, 1997).

The Supreme Court in the Early Republic: the Chief Justiceships of John Jay and Oliver Ellsworth. (University of South Carolina Press, 1995).

“Dear Sister Antillico… ”: The Story of Kirksey v. Kirksey, 94 GEORGETOWN L.J. 321 (2006).

The New Federal Common Law of Tort Remedies for Violations of International Law, 37 RUTGERS L.J. 635 (2006).

"We are armed for the defense of the rights of man:" The French Resolution Comes to America, 61 AM. NEPTUNE 263 (2001).

Additional Light on the Origins of Federal Admiralty Jurisdiction, 31 J. MAR. L. & COM. 143 (2000).

Oliver Ellsworth's Calvinism: a Biographical Essay on Religion and Political Psychology in the Early Republic, 36 J. CHURCH & ST. 507 (1994).

The Origins of Federal Admiralty Jurisdiction in an Age of Privateers, Smugglers, and Pirates, 37 AM. J. LEGAL HIST. 117 (1993).