Stephen A. Saltzburg

Stephen A. Saltzburg graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1970. He clerked for the Hon. Stanley A. Weigel (N.D. Cal.) in 1970-1971, and for the Hon. Thurgood Marshall in 1971-1972.

Professor Saltzburg joined GW Law in 1990. Before that, he taught at the University of Virginia School of Law and was named the first incumbent of the Class of 1962 Endowed Chair. In 1996, he founded and directed the master’s program in Litigation and Dispute Resolution at GW. He was named University Professor, the highest title a University can confer upon a faculty member, in 2004. The Chief Justice of the United States appointed him as reporter for, and then as a member of, the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and as a member of the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence. He was the reporter for the Civil Justice Reform Act Committee for the DC District Court before he became chair. He has served as a special master in several cases in the DC District Court and continues to serve as a mediator for the U.S. Court of Appeals for DC. He has mediated a variety of disputes involving public agencies and private litigants; served as a sole arbitrator, panel chair, and panel member in domestic arbitrations; and served as an arbitrator for the International Chamber of Commerce. 

Professor Saltzburg held the following governmental positions: associate independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation; deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Attorney General’s ex-officio representative on the U.S. Sentencing Commission; and director of the U.S. Treasury Department Tax Refund Fraud Task Force (for which he received special recognition from Secretary of the Treasury, Robert E. Rubin, on February 10, 1995).

He was chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section from 2007 to 2008 and represents the Section in the ABA House of Delegates.

Professor Saltzburg has received a number of honors, including being named an Honorary Faculty Member at the Judge Advocate General School, Charlottesville, Virginia; and receiving the  following awards: the William J. Brennan, Jr. Award from the National Trial Advocacy College at the University of Virginia; the 2000 Francis Rawle Award for Outstanding Contributions to Post-Grad Legal Education from ALI-ABA; the 2011 Burton Distinguished Award Recipient: Reform in Law; the 2014 ABA Grassroots Advocacy Award; the 2015 ABA Presidential Citation; the 2021 American Bar Foundation Distinguished Service Award, and the 2021 ABA Senior Lawyers’ Division John H. Pickering Award. 

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