Dave Finkel (Chicago ’21) Named as a James Wilson Fellow

Tony Patino Fellow Dave Finkel is one of 17 recipients of the 2023 James Wison Fellowship. He and other Fellows will spend a week in Washington, D.C., studying the moral underpinnings of the law and the jurisprudence of natural rights. The seminars will be led by founder and director Hadley Arkes and several other prominent legal scholars.

Dave Finkel clerks for the Honorable Timothy M. Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Last year he clerked for the Honorable Jeffrey V. Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Dave received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School where he was a Tony Patiño Fellow and president of the veterans organization. During law school, Dave interned with the Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal of the Southern District of Texas and summered at Schiffer Hicks Johnson PLLC in Houston. Prior to law school, Dave served eight years as an infantry officer in the Army. He has a B.S. from the United States Military Academy.

The mission of the James Wilson Institute is “to restore to a new generation of lawyers and citizens the understanding of the American Founders about the first principles of our law and the moral grounds of their own rights.”

The seminar course will focus on the discussion of “the central points of a jurisprudence of Natural Law, such as the classic connection between the “logic of morals” and the “logic of law,” the properties of moral truths and the principles of judgment, and how we would see certain landmark cases differently if they were viewed through the lens of Natural Law. Our main objective is to restore a moral coherence to our jurisprudence.”

Learn more about the James Wilson Institute and the other 2023 Fellows here.