Professor David Schleicher to Present Inaugural Walter E. Meyer Lecture on Oct. 27

Professor David N. Schleicher will present the inaugural lecture of his appointment as Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law on Oct. 27.

The lecture is titled “Broken Machines: Law and the Challenge of Making Big Cities Work.”

A member of the Law School faculty since 2015, Schleicher is an expert in local government law, land use, federalism, state and local finance, and urban development.

His 2023 book, “In a Bad State: Responding to State and Local Fiscal Crises,” gives federal policymakers “a practical guide” for when states and cities cannot pay their debts. Schleicher uses economics, political science, law, and history to explain what the federal government can — and cannot — do to provide for the general welfare during state and local defaults. Reviews of the book called him “the ideal legal scholar of cities” and “one of the most brilliant and far-ranging political thinkers of his generation.” 

Schleicher’s work has been published widely in academic journals and popular outlets and has co-authored leading casebooks about local government and property law. Schleicher also co-hosts the podcast, “Digging a Hole: The Legal Theory Podcast” with Kent Professor of Law and History Samuel Moyn.

Schleicher was appointed Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at Yale Law School in 2024. Prior to joining the Law School faculty, Schleicher was an associate professor of law at George Mason University School of Law, where he won the university’s Teaching Excellence Award. He has also taught at Georgetown, Harvard, and New York University. Schleicher holds an A.B. in economics and government from Dartmouth College, an M.Sc in economics from the London School of Economics, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

The lecture, which is open to the Yale community, will be held Monday, Oct. 27 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 127 of the Sterling Law Building. Registration is required by Oct. 20.