Michael R. Dreeben Is Featured Speaker For 22nd Annual Robert H. Jackson Lecture On The Supreme Court

Professor Michael R. Dreeben will be the featured speaker for the 22nd Annual Robert H. Jackson Lecture on the Supreme Court of the United States at Chautauqua Institution this month.

The lecture will take place 3:30 p.m. Monday, July 27 at Chautauqua’s Hall of Philosophy.

Prof. Michael Dreeben is a distinguished lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center and adjunct professor at American University Washington College of Law. One of the most experienced Supreme Court advocates in the country, Dreeben argued 109 cases before the Court during his three decades in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he supervised the criminal docket for the United States from 1994 to 2019.

Dreeben is perhaps best known publicly for his service as counselor to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III from 2017 to 2019, supporting the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He later served as counselor to Special Counsel Jack Smith, representing the United States in Trump v. United States, the landmark Supreme Court case on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.

Throughout his career, Dreeben argued landmark cases spanning hate crimes and the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment rights in the digital age, public corruption, and the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause. He has also taught at Harvard Law School, Duke Law School, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dreeben holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Chicago, and Duke University School of Law. His most recent essay, “Robert Jackson’s The Federal Prosecutor Revisited,” appears in the 2026 Harvard Law Review Forum.

Chautauqua Institution’s Robert H. Jackson Lecture is named in honor of the former Chautauquan, Jamestown lawyer, New Dealer, Solicitor General, Attorney General, Supreme Court justice, and Nuremberg chief prosecutor. Every summer the Jackson Lecture is a leading expert discussing the Supreme Court, the Justices, signal decisions, and related legal developments.