Samuel W. Buell
Professor of Law
Sam Buell’s research and teaching focus on criminal law and on the regulatory state, particularly regulation of corporations and financial markets. His current work explores the concept of fraud and the problem of behaviors that evolve in order to thwart legal controls. Buell's publications include “What Is Securities Fraud?”, Duke Law Journal (forthcoming 2011); “Good Faith and Law Evasion,” UCLA Law Review (2011); “The Upside of Overbreadth,” NYU Law Review (2008); “Criminal Procedure Within the Firm,” Stanford Law Review (2007); “Reforming Punishment of Financial Reporting Fraud,” Cardozo Law Review (2007); “Novel Criminal Fraud,” NYU Law Review (2006) (selected for the Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum); and “The Blaming Function of Entity Criminal Liability,” Indiana Law Journal (2006). He is a member of the American Law Institute.
Buell joined the Duke Law faculty as a professor in 2010, after serving as an associate professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and a visiting assistant professor at the University of Texas School of Law. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a federal prosecutor in New York, Boston, Washington, and Houston. He twice received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service, the Department of Justice’s highest honor, and was a lead prosecutor for the Department’s Enron Task Force. Buell clerked for the Honorable Jack B. Weinstein of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and practiced as an associate with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.
Buell graduated summa cum laude from New York University School of Law and magna cum laude from Brown University. He was an editor of the New York University Law Review and received five graduation awards, including for first in his class.
