Written by: Hannah Huston 

University of Iowa College of Law faculty member Samantha Barbas, who holds the Aliber Family Chair in Law, was elected in December to the American Law Institute (ALI), the leading independent organization in the United States for producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and improve the law.

ALI membership is limited to 3,000 judges, lawyers, and law professors worldwide, selected for their professional achievement and commitment to improving the law. Barbas joins nine other current full-time Iowa Law faculty as an elected ALI member.

"I am deeply grateful for this honor and look forward to contributing to the important work of the ALI,” said Barbas.

Barbas joined the faculty at the University of Iowa in 2024. She is a scholar of legal and media history, with a focus on journalism, privacy, defamation, and the First Amendment—and the award-winning author of seven books. Barbas received the Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2020.

Her most recent book, Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan (University of California Press), made The New Yorker’s list of the best books of 2023, among other critical accolades. It was also a finalist for the Order of the Coif Book Award and was honored by the legal publication Green Bag for “exemplary legal writing.”

Read more about Professor Samantha Barbas on the American Law Institute’s website.