J.D., Columbia Law School; M.Phil., Trinity College, Cambridge; A.B., M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Professor Butterton has wide-ranging law practice experience, extensive teaching and mentoring experience, and substantial training in law and allied disciplines.
He has been a judicial law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit, for the Hon. Rosemary Barkett; a Senior Attorney at the International Trade Administration in Washington, DC; a Senior Associate at O’Melveny & Myers, LLP; and has worked on a host of litigation and regulatory matters, foreign and domestic. As a government attorney, he has represented the United States in disputes involving Canada; Chile; China; France; Germany; Holland; India; Japan; Mexico; Russia; South Korea; Thailand; and Turkey. In the private sector, he has worked on behalf of firms with multinational operations in aviation, high-technology, steel, chemicals, energy, pharmaceuticals, telecommunication, automobiles, textiles, financial services, entertainment, and agriculture. And he has done pro bono work in support of individuals, and the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (UNICERD).
Professor Butterton has also held teaching, research and administrative appointments at several universities. At the University of Chicago, he was a Bigelow Fellow and taught at the University of Chicago Law School; at Columbia University, he was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows, and a Mellon Lecturer in the Columbia Core Curriculum; at Peking University, he was a Cornelius Vander Starr Senior Lecturer and Foreign Expert, and taught in the School of Transnational Law and the School of Humanities; at Harvard University, he was a Resident Tutor, Assistant Senior Tutor and Member of the Senior Common Room at Dunster House in Harvard College, and taught at the Harvard Business School. He has also served as a Consultant, Deputy Director, and Distinguished Senior Research Scholar at the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience.
He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, earning the A.B. degree with Highest Honors (summa cum laude), Great Distinction, and Phi Beta Kappa, while concentrating on Literature, Psychology, and Philosophy. He then studied broadly in the cognitive sciences, earning M.A. & Ph.D. degrees as a Regents’ Fellow, Heller Traveling Fellow, and Phi Beta Kappa Doctoral Fellow, while concentrating on English Philology, Theoretical Linguistics, and Philosophy of Language. At Cambridge University, he earned the M.Phil. degree in Trinity College with support from the Arthur Stanley Eddington Fund, and received a Hooper Declamation Prize, while concentrating on International Law, Economics, and Political History. At Columbia University Law School, he earned the J.D. degree as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, received Honors in Foreign and International Law, and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.
Outside of legal and academic work, he has explored 49 of the 50 states, traveled extensively overseas, run seven marathons, and played many games of four-wall handball. Most important of all, he is the father of two extraordinary children, who are the most interesting people he has ever met, and the best teachers he has ever had.