Judge Williams on Administrative Law
It is an honor to speak of Judge Williams’s contributions to administrative law. I did not know him well, but greatly enjoyed the interactions we had, either at various conferences or, more recently, as part of the American Law Institute’s Restatement Fourth of Property, of which I am an associate reporter and he was a very valued member of the advisory committee.
I nevertheless feel a strong kinship with Judge Williams since I believe he was the one judge in all the country who shared an academic background most similar to mine. He taught Administrative Law, Environmental Law, and Property at Colorado before joining the bench. These are the same three subjects that have been the primary focus of my teaching career. He was also strongly influenced by the law and economics movement of the 1970s, something which is also characteristic of my own intellectual odyssey. Of course, the match is not perfect. I have never taught oil and gas law and I do not enjoy delving into FERC cases, although I have written a bit about the regulation of fracking. But in reading Judge Williams’s opinions and articles, I have always felt I was adsorbing thoughts from someone on my own wavelength.
