David M. O'Brien is the Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor at the University of Virginia. He has been a Judicial Fellow and Research Associate at the Supreme Court of the U.S.; and held Fulbright Teaching and Research Awards at Oxford University, England; the University of Bologna, Italy; and in Japan; as well as was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York, and a Visiting Professor at Institut d'Etudes Politique Universite Lumiere-Lyon 2. He was a commissioner on the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Exchange and the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission.