International Summit
on the Law and Business
of Video Games

Speakers > John B Attanasio, Dean, SMU Dedman School of Law

Judge James Noel Dean and Professor of Law and William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law, B.A., 1976, University of Virginia; J.D., 1979, New York University; Diploma in Law, 1982, University of Oxford (Oriel College); LL.M., 1985, Yale University. Dean Attanasio has taught at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Notre Dame Law School, where he also served as the John M. Regan Jr. Director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies from 1991-92. As a 1990 Fulbright Award recipient, Dean Attanasio delivered lectures on American constitutional law in Moscow and throughout the former Soviet Union. He was dean of St. Louis University School of Law from 1992-98. He has been Dean of the Dedman School of Law at SMU since 1998. He is the Principal Investigator of the Rule of Law Forum which brings high level leaders to the United States for meetings with American counterparts in the government including the Senate, Supreme Court, State Department, the Federal Reserve Bank and others from the judiciary, business and academic communities. He has organized summits and other high level meetings with Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the European Court of Justice, the Italian Constitutional Court, the Russian Constitutional Court, the South African Constitutional Court, and the German Constitutional Court. He has advised various legislative and judicial officials in emerging democracies in countries around the world. In addition, he arranged the first United States visit of five justices of the Russian Constitutional Court and accompanied them to Washington, D.C. He also organized a symposium on the South Africa constitutional transformation featuring three justices from that nation's Constitutional Court. He is co-editor-in-chief of The International Lawyer, and sits on the Board of the Appellate Judges Educational Institute. He co-chaired the ABA's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Out-of-the-Box Committee on the Future of American Legal Education. Dean Attanasio has taught constitutional law, First Amendment, civil procedure, torts, and jurisprudence. He is co-author (with Norman Redlich, Joel Goldstein, and the late Bernard Schwartz) of Constitutional Law and Understanding Constitutional Law and has written numerous articles for legal journals. He has written and lectured in the areas of international law, constitutional law, federalism, religion and law in society, human genetic engineering, and legal education.