Professor of Law and Legal Consultant
Professor Tom W. Bell earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago, practiced law in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., and served as a policy director at the Cato Institute before joining the faculty of Chapman University, Fowler School of Law in 1998. He teaches all of the first-year common law courses and electives in high-tech, entertainment, and intellectual property law. Bell has published works on copyright, Internet law, polycentric law, prediction markets, and the Third Amendment (the one about quartering troops). His books include “Intellectual Privilege: Copyright, Common Law, and the Common Good” (Mercatus 2014), and “Your Next Government? From the Nation State to Stateless Nations” (Cambridge University Press 2018). He created Ulex, the open source legal system, and advises companies developing special economic zones and related semi-autonomous jurisdictions. As Academic Director of the Institute for Competitive Governance, he promotes a better way to better government. He has served as pro bono legal advisor for The Seasteading Institute in French Polynesia and other countries.
Mr. Bell has also generously contributed a new Research Paper on the Seastead Flag
