About — Stephan Kinsella

I’m from Prairieville, Louisiana, a small town near Baton Rouge. I graduated from Catholic High School in Baton Rouge in 1983, and attended LSU from 1983 to 1991 (B.S. & M.S., electrical engineering, 1987 and 1990; JD, LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center, 1991). I attended King’s College London-University of London from 1991 to 1992, and received an LL.M. in international business law in 1992. I’m married; my wife and I have one child.

I am a registered patent attorney and have practiced law since 1992, initially with Jackson Walker L.L.P. in Houston (1992-94), in the firm’s oil & gas, international, and intellectual property sections. I moved in 1994 to Philadelphia, where I practiced IP law with Schnader Harrison LLP (1994-97), and then with Duane Morris LLP (1997-2000). In late 1997 I moved back to Houston, where I opened Duane Morris’s Houston office and was a partner in the IP Department. In October 2000, I left Duane Morris to become general counsel for one of my clients, Applied Optoelectronics, Inc., a laser manufacturer in Sugar Land. I also taught for two years as Adjunct Professor (computer law) at South Texas College of Law.

I’ve been interested in libertarianism since about 1982, due in part to the influence of Ayn Rand and later Rothbard, Mises, Milton Friedman, Henry Hazlitt, Frederic Bastiat, the Tannehills, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Since 1991, I have been active writing and speaking on topics such as rights theory, legal theory, Austrian economics, anarcho-libertarianism, contract theory, inalienability, property law, causation, intellectual property, and punishment theory. Libertarian books include Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, with Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Mises Institute, 2009); Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2008); and The Ethics of Action: Fundamentals of Libertarian Legal Theory (forthcoming 2010) (an edited selection of my rights and law-related articles).

I am a Senior Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (since September 2009), a member of the Advisory Panel of the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) (since July 2009), and the founder and Editor of Libertarian Papers (January 2009-present). I was Book Review Editor of the Mises Institute’s Journal of Libertarian Studies (Summer 2000-Winter 2004).

My legal publications include International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution: A Practitioner’s Guide (Oxford University Press, 2005 [2nd ed. forthcoming 2010]); Online Contract Formation (Oceana Publications, 2004); Trademark Practice and Forms (Oxford University Press, 2001-present); World Online Business Law (Oxford University Press, 2003-present); Digest of Commercial Laws of the World (Oxford University Press, 1998-present); Protecting Foreign Investment Under International Law: Legal Aspects of Political Risk (Oceana Publications, 1997); and Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary (with Gregory Rome, forthcoming 2010).

Teaching & Speaking

  • South Texas College of Law, Houston: Adjunct professor (Computer Law) Fall 1998, 1999
  • Variety of speeches, papers and activities related to legal and political topics, including speeches before: Federalist Society, Philadelphia Chapter, regarding the Ninth Amendment (May 6, 1997); Federalist Society, Philadelphia Chapter, regarding legal codes and systems (September 9, 1997); Internet Service Provider Liability Seminar, Philadelphia (June 1996); The Freeman Society of Valley Forge (Mar. 4, 1996); Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn, Alabama (Jan. 27, 1996); and LSU Mineral Law Institute, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (March 1994); Planning Committee Member & Speaker, 1998 Oil & Gas Law Institute, South Texas College of Law [present paper on Patents and Intellectual Property in the Oil & Gas Industry; Aug. 1998]; Judge, Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, Houston, Texas(1993 & 1994); Chair, Scholars of the Austrian School panel, Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn, Alabama (April 5, 1997); Chair and paper, Constitutional Structures in Defense of Freedom, Law and Economics panel, Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn, Alabama (April 3, 1998); speaker/panelist, Union panel, HOBY Texas Gulf Coast 1998 Leadership Seminar, Rice University; paper, A Theory of Contracts: Binding Promises, Title Transfer, and Inalienability, Law and Economics panel, Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn, Alabama (April 17, 1999); Planning Committee Member & Moderator, 1999 Energy Law Institute, South Texas College of Law, Aug. 1999; Speaker, Crime, Punishment and Restitution, Liberal Institute, Prague, Czech Republic, May 27, 1999; panelist, Twenty-Second International Conference on the Unity of Sciences, Military and Police–Public or Private? committee, Seoul, Korea, February 9-13, 2000; paper, The Legitimacy of Intellectual Property, Law and Economics panel, Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn, Alabama (March 25, 2000); chair, Law and Economics panel, Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn, Alabama (March 30-31, 2001); faculty, Rothbard Graduate Seminar, Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama (July 28-Aug. 2, 2002); delivered the Rothbard Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference 2008 (The Intellectual Property Quagmire, or, The Perils of Libertarian Creationism; PDF version; Audio; Video; Google Video version), Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn AL, March 13, 2008; presenting speech on IP and libertarianism, Mises University 2009, July 30, 2009.
  • Winner, the Mises Institute’s O.P. Alford III Prize for scholarly article published during 2001-2002 that best advances libertarian scholarship, awarded at the eighth Austrian Scholars Conference, March 16, 2002, Auburn, Alabama, for the article Against Intellectual Property, Spring 2001, Journal of Libertarian Studies.

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