Wayne State University Law School Professor Stephen Calkins has
spent his entire career in antitrust law, and he was recently recognized for
his contributions to that area of law.
Calkins is the 2019 recipient of the Alfred E. Kahn Award for
Antitrust Achievement from the American Antitrust Institute.
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| Calkins |
He spoke with Michigan
Lawyers Weekly to discuss his career and what this honor means.
Just to start, how did you
get into the antitrust field?
I got out of law school and was put in touch with a federal trade
commissioner. I became a law clerk for that commissioner at the Federal Trade
Commission, and that began a lifetime of working in antitrust and consumer
protection along with the FTC.
I went from the FTC to a private practice with a big D.C. law
firm to a faculty position at Wayne State, and I’ve come and gone from here
since the 80s.
What did you like about
antitrust law?
I’ve always liked it. It’s a great subject because it has some
law, some economics, public policy, it’s a great way of observing the history
of legal change. It’s a great way of thinking about institutional issues and
issues of administrative law and substantive law. It’s a good insight into the
legal system and the economic system. Because the FTC also does consumer
protection, I’ve spent a lot of time in consumer law as well.
How did you decide to
pursue a career in academia?
I was at a firm in D.C. and I had been teaching at the University
of Virginia as an adjunct. I had begun giving speeches and writing articles as
well.
I had gotten married and we decided it would be more rewarding to
spend more time teaching, speaking and writing than just being a practitioner,
so I left to go into academia. Wayne State had a good reputation and was
geographically appealing because my family lives in Buffalo, New York, and the
historic center of our family is the summer home in Traverse City. In a way it
was going home to Michigan.
My children make fun of me, but in the end it was the University
of San Diego that I turned down, and they laugh about how different their life
would’ve been. I’m very pleased that I moved here. I like the north.
What have you continued to
research in antitrust law during your time in education?
I follow developments in antitrust as closely as anybody in the
country. There’s no better way to stay on top of developments than giving
speeches. I give a speech on the past year in antitrust to the state attorney
general pretty much every year. I’m usually assuming that I’ll be giving that
talk so I’m always filing things away for that.
You spent a few years
working in Ireland, how did that happen for you?
I got an email from a friend who had previously been a
commissioner in the Irish agency and he said there were several vacancies. Their
competition agency was going to be merging with their consumer agency, so it
combined the two disciplines I had spent a lifetime working on.
I forwarded that email to my wife and she was excited about
moving to Dublin. I applied online and went over twice for interviews and got
appointed. It was a great pleasure living in Ireland, it’s a much more
rewarding experience to live in a foreign country rather than pass through as a
visitor.
The list of universities
represented by recipients of this award include Harvard, Stanford and
Georgetown, how does it feel to put Wayne State on that list?
It’s an extraordinary list of previous award winners and so I
felt very honored and privileged to join that list. It’s a terrific group of
some of the best people who have been involved in the antitrust enterprise and
I was very proud to join that list and delighted to have Wayne State added to
the list of institutions to join it.
— Thomas Franz
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