Stephen Isaiah Vladeck (born September 26, 1979)[1][2] is an American legal scholar. He is a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he specializes in the federal courts, constitutional law, national security law, and military justice, especially with relation to the prosecution of war crimes.[3][4][5] Vladeck has commented on the legality of the United States' use of extrajudicial detention and torture,[6] and is a regular contributor to CNN.
At age 11, Vladeck appeared on the children's game show Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? as a contestant on the episode titled "Blarney Burglary" in 1992, where the character Vic the Slick steals the Blarney Stone. [9] As a teenager, Vladeck was heavily involved with quiz bowl, basketball, and baseball at Montgomery Blair High School.
Vladeck is Jewish.[23] In 2011, Vladeck married Karen Shafrir, the former managing director of Whisler Partners, a law firm for startup technology companies.[7][24] As of 2024, Karen is the Founder & Managing Partner at Risepoint Search Partners, a boutique legal recruiting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. [25]
Vladeck is a prominent legal commentator on X, formerly Twitter, known for his frequent, accessible insights into Supreme Court decisions and other high-stakes legal issues.[26]
Media
Vladeck co-hosts the National Security Law Podcast with fellow University of Texas law professor Robert Chesney.[27] In 2020, Vladeck began hosting a second podcast, In Loco Parent(i)s with his wife, Karen Shafrir-Vladeck. The podcast is “about parenting and lawyering, in that order.” He also publishes a Substack newsletter with his wife, titled One First – which recently reached over 40,000 subscribers. [28]
Selected publications
Books
Vladeck, Stephen (May 16, 2023). The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic. Basic Books. ISBN978-1-5416-0264-9. Review by Andrew Koppelman.
^ ab"Posts by Steve Vladeck". Lawfare. May 16, 2013. Archived from the original on April 30, 2013. Retrieved May 22, 2013. A 2004 graduate of Yale Law School, Steve clerked for Judge Marsha Berzon on the Ninth Circuit and Judge Rosemary Barkett on the Eleventh Circuit.
^"Karen Shafrir, Stephen Vladeck". New York Times. November 13, 2011. p. ST16. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Mr. Vladeck, 32, is a law professor and the associate dean for scholarship at American University Washington College of Law. He graduated summa cum laude from Amherst and received a law degree from Yale.
^
Klein, Kent (June 1, 2011). "Supreme Court: US Muslim Cannot Sue Former Official". Voice of America. A law professor at the American University College of Law, Stephen Vladeck, said the justices agreed unanimously that Ashcroft could not be sued personally. And a majority also rejected the merits of al-Kidd's case.
^Carol Rosenberg (October 18, 2016). "Guantánamo judge has U.S. Marshals seize no-show war court witness". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on October 18, 2016. Vladeck questioned the war court's authority to do this. "I have to imagine he has a pretty good habeas claim," he said of Gill's overnight detention to testify. "If the commissions can't usually issue extraordinary writs, what is the government's legal basis for detaining him?"