Professors Rosa Brooks, David Koplow and David Vladeck are the latest members of the faculty to join the Obama administration: Brooks as senior adviser to Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, Koplow as special counsel for arms control to the general counsel at the Department of Defense, and Vladeck as director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission. “We are delighted that Professors Brooks, Koplow and Vladeck have been asked to fill these important roles,” says Dean Alex Aleinikoff. “Their appointments underscore our commitment to public service, a hallmark of the Law Center.” Brooks, Koplow and Vladeck join colleagues Lisa Heinzerling, Neal Katyal, Martin Lederman and Daniel Tarullo in taking leaves of absence for government service.

Though it’s been only 13 years since Rosa Brooks graduated from Yale Law School, she has already served as director of Georgetown Law’s Human Rights Institute, taught international law and human rights-related courses as a professor at Georgetown Law, and been an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a visiting lecturer at Yale.

“Rosa Brooks has a unique ability to combine the activism of public service with the scholarly contemplation of academia,” says Professor David Koplow — noting that Brooks’ students always enjoyed, and benefited from, her knack for integrating practical politics, public policy and thoughtful reflection. “I know her current colleagues at the Department of Defense will likewise draw upon both her intense connection to the real world and her ability to step back from it for balance and perspective.”

In 2006-2007, Brooks took a leave of absence from Georgetown to serve as special counsel to George Soros, founder of the Open Society Institute in New York.

Her new role marks a return to government service: during the Clinton administration, she served as an adviser to the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor at the U.S. State Department. In 2004, she served as director of the Kerry-Edwards campaign’s task force on democracy, development and human rights. Her government and NGO work has involved field research on issues ranging from transitional justice in Iraq to child soldiers in Sierra Leone.

Her advice and counsel extend to the printed word as well. With Professors Jane Stromseth of Georgetown Law and David Wippman of Cornell, she co-authored Can Might Make Rights? Building the Rule of Law After Military Interventions (Cambridge, 2006). The book explores the complicated challenges of building an enduring political, institutional and cultural commitment to the rule of law in countries emerging from military conflict. Her law review articles have ranged from the politics of the Geneva Conventions to the law of armed conflict in the age of terrorism. And during four years as a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Brooks discussed everything from a proposed newspaper bailout to Gaza.

“Rosa has an incredible ability to break down complicated problems into their constituent parts and to clearly explain these issues in a way that facilitates others’ understanding and leads to more productive decision-making,” says Rachel Taylor, deputy director of the Human Rights Institute, who has worked closely with Brooks. “I learned a tremendous amount from working with her at the Human Rights Institute, and know she will be an amazing asset to the Department of Defense.”

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Going from an office in McDonough Hall to one in the Pentagon is a natural step for Professor David Koplow, who on August 3 began the job as special counsel for arms control to the general counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense. Koplow, a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School, joined the Georgetown Law faculty in 1981 after several years as attorney adviser and special assistant to the director at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Koplow also served as deputy general counsel for international affairs at the DOD from 1997 to 1999, taking a two-year leave from the Law Center to do so. Koplow returns to the Pentagon in a different world, and a different role, since he’ll be focusing almost exclusively on his particular specialty, arms control. He says he’s looking forward to contributing solutions to national security problems — including those posed by the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

At Georgetown, Koplow has taught International Law as well as seminars in arms control and national security, the proliferation of modern weapons and other topics. He has also served as co-director of Georgetown Law’s Center for Applied Legal Studies, representing refugees seeking political asylum in the United States because of threatened persecution in their home countries. (He’ll be leaving the clinic in the capable hands of Visiting Professor Andrew Schoenholtz and Professor Philip Schrag.)

Koplow has written in the areas of international law, U.S. foreign affairs law and arms control, especially verification of arms control treaty compliance. His book Death by Moderation: The U.S. Military’s Quest for “Useable” Weapons (Cambridge) is due out this fall and reviewed on page 7.

“That David can move from directing a clinic on asylum to serving as special counsel for arms control reflects his virtuosity in diverse subject matter mastery, organizational and interpersonal skills, and attention to both details and the larger picture,” says Professor Richard Roe — voicing a sentiment echoed by others. “I feel the world will be a safer place with David’s input at the highest levels of government.”

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At Georgetown Law’s 137th commencement on May 17, graduates got to hear from a familiar speaker, sporting a new title. The speaker was Professor David Vladeck, a co-director of Georgetown’s Institute for Public Representation and the newly appointed head of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Vladeck was named to the post in April.

“David Vladeck’s life in the law provides a wonderful model for our graduating class,” Dean Alex Aleinikoff said as he introduced the law professor to the families and friends of the graduates. “Public interest litigator, professor and now public servant.”

After earning a J.D. from Columbia and an LL.M. from Georgetown in 1977, Vladeck spent 26 years at Public Citizen, a nationally prominent public interest law firm. He served 10 years as the head of Public Citizen’s litigation group before leaving in 2002 to direct the Institute for Public Representation, Georgetown’s public interest law clinic. He joined the faculty full time in 2006, although he’d served as an adjunct since the 1980s and was even a teaching fellow here in the 1970s.

In his career, he’s argued five cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, scores of cases in federal and state appellate courts and testified before Congress on many occasions. At Georgetown, he’s taught courses in federal courts, civil procedure, and government processes and has represented indigent clients in cases ranging from employment discrimination and disability rights to prisoners’ rights and open government cases. An expert in federal preemption issues, occupational safety and health law and food and drug law, Vladeck also directed the Center on Health Regulation and Governance of the O’Neill Institute.

“For the poor, unless they win the legal service lottery, they are denied access to justice altogether,” Vladeck said in his address to the class of 2009. He noted that although there are a million lawyers practicing in the United States, only 6000 of them regularly represent poor people in civil cases. “The poor, the unemployed and the dispossessed need the help of lawyers to reclaim their lives, and they need help now,” he said.

Vladeck has worked hard to provide that help. He was named one of 30 “Champions of Justice” as well as one of the “90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years” by the Legal Times. When the Washington Post announced his FTC appointment, Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said, “He knows how to use the courts to go after significant cases and shake up industries … there’s a powerful new cop on the consumer beat.”

And his colleague, Professor Steven Goldberg, says: “With David Vladeck, the Federal Trade Commission is getting three people for the price of one — an outstanding policymaker, one of the best lawyers in the country and a leading scholar.”