David Oedel

Professor of Law

Professor David G. Oedel studies and teaches a range of subjects including constitutional law, intellectual property, and economic regulation. In 2010, he was appointed by Georgia’s Governor Sonny Perdue to represent the State of Georgia in the 20-state legal challenge to the federal healthcare reform legislation. In that capacity, he is serving as Deputy Special Attorney General for the State of Georgia. Among the diverse projects in which he is involved, Professor Oedel heads a research team of lawyers and economists exploring whether excessive partisanship in American political life may be reduced through independent redistricting. His research on that topic was the subject in 2010 of a panel of national experts on politics at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. He also serves as a lawyer, advisor and counselor on public policy matters to several leaders in government and business at the local, state and national levels. In the summer of 2011, Professor Oedel will be teaching and studying at the Tianjin Institute at Nankai University in China on Denationalizing Economic Sectors. In 2010, with Edward J. Pinto, Professor Oedel wrote in the National Law Journal advocating the denationalization of housing finance in the United States, and Professor Oedel has written extensively in the academic literature as well as in the popular media about a number of topics of public policy and economic regulation. In his home of Macon, Georgia, he serves on the steering committee of the Think Community Initiative, an organization of community leaders committed to finding common ground in a historically divided community. Professor Oedel, his wife Kerry, and their children enjoy running, swimming, biking, triathlon-ing, adventure racing and orienteering together.

Professor Oedel earned a J.D. in 1987, magna cum laude, from Boston University School of Law, where he was a G. Joseph Tauro Scholar, Paul J. Liacos Scholar, and Edward F. Hennessey Distinguished Scholar. He received a BA from Haverford College in 1979.

Professor Oedel has worked at Mercer University Law School since 1990, where he is now a Professor of Law. He was a Visiting Professor of Law at Emory Law School in 1999. Prior to teaching, Professor Oedel worked at the Boston law firm of Gaston & Snow, where he litigated a number of prominent matters, and served as an advisor in a presidential campaign. He has previously served as Chair of the AALS Section on Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services; Reporter on Civil Justice Reform for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia; Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Banking Law; and on a number of boards, councils, panels, and advisory groups. He is a member of the Georgia and Massachusetts bars, and a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.