Pictured Above: Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer speak at a May 2025 Judicature event, where they discussed current challenges facing the judiciary. Read an excerpt from their remarks.
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The award honors Bauer and Goldsmith’s collaborative work bridging partisan divides to address challenges facing U.S. democratic institutions.
Bob Bauer, Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law, and Jack Goldsmith, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University, have been named the 2025 recipients of the Raphael Lemkin Rule of Law Guardian Medal in recognition of their bipartisan efforts to study and develop proposals for reforming the U.S. presidency to safeguard democratic processes.
Professors Bauer and Goldsmith were honored at a program hosted by the Bolch Judicial Institute for the Duke Law community in October. A video of the program is available to watch on YouTube.
The Lemkin Medal is awarded annually by the Bolch Judicial Institute of Duke Law School to honor individuals who protect and defend the rule of law. Bauer and Goldsmith, who each served in presidential administrations on opposite sides of the political spectrum, have become leading voices for reforming laws governing the presidency through their scholarship and advocacy. Together, they wrote After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (2020), examining how constitutional crises exposed weaknesses in presidential oversight and proposing bipartisan reforms to prevent future abuses of executive power. Their partnership models how legal scholars from different political backgrounds can work together to address systemic threats to democratic governance.
“Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith represent the very best of legal scholarship and public service,” said Paul W. Grimm, the David F. Levi Professor of the Practice of Law, director of the Bolch Judicial Institute, and a retired federal judge. “Their ability to draw on different viewpoints to identify constitutional problems and propose practical solutions exemplifies the commitment to rule of law principles that the Lemkin Medal recognizes. At a time when political divisions threaten our democratic institutions, Bob and Jack’s collaborative approach offers an admirable model for how legal professionals can work together to strengthen constitutional governance.”
Distinguished Public Service Careers
Bob Bauer served as White House counsel to President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2011 and was general counsel to Obama for America, the president’s campaign organization, in 2008 and 2012. Obama named Bauer co-chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration in 2013, and President Joe Biden appointed him co-chair of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States in 2021.
At NYU, Bauer serves as co-director of the Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic. He has authored numerous articles on constitutional and political law issues for major publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. He has also served as co-counsel to the New Hampshire State Senate in the trial of David A. Brock, former chief justice of New Hampshire, and counsel to the Democratic leader in the trial of President William Jefferson Clinton.
Jack Goldsmith served as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel from October 2003 through July 2004 during the George W. Bush administration and as special counsel to the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense from September 2002 through June 2003.
Goldsmith is internationally recognized as a leading expert on presidential power, national security law, international law, and internet law. Before joining the Harvard Law faculty in 2004, he taught at the law schools of the University of Chicago and the University of Virginia. He clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy; J. Harvie Wilkinson III, U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; and George Aldrich, judge of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal.
“Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith are a very worthy choice for the Lemkin Medal,” said Jack Knight, the Frederic Cleaveland Distinguished Professor of Law and Political Science. “Through their creative approach of working together from different political perspectives, Bauer and Goldsmith have expanded the scope of relevant political debate, compelled us to address both practical and theoretical challenges from new and different perspectives, and fostered original insights into many of the perennial theoretical dilemmas within the literature on executive power and its relationship to the other branches of government. In doing so, they have successfully addressed a broad audience of academics and practitioners.”
Ongoing Efforts and Public Engagement
In addition to their scholarship and other co-authored publications, Bauer and Goldsmith also collaborate through multiple American Law Institute (ALI) projects focused on critical constitutional reforms. They co-chaired a bipartisan working group that developed principles for Electoral Count Act reform, contributing scholarship that helped inform the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022. This legislation, which passed Congress with broad bipartisan support, clarified the role of Congress in counting electoral votes and strengthened safeguards for the peaceful transfer of power.
More recently, they co-chaired another bipartisan ALI working group that produced principles for Insurrection Act reform, addressing concerns about potential abuse of presidential emergency powers. Their work on both projects demonstrates the power of principled approaches to complex constitutional questions and serves as an inspiration for others to embrace similar strategies.
“Much like a really good court, Bob and Jack have the ability and character to take on the hardest and most controversial legal issues and do so in a way that acknowledges the complexities and explores the uncertainties, without shying away from resolution,” said David F. Levi, ALI president, former Duke Law dean, and director emeritus of the Bolch Judicial Institute. “Frequently, they agree on that resolution, although sometimes for different reasons. What is so very important, and what resonates so strongly with members of the ALI, is that like the ALI, Jack and Bob model the kind of respectful civil discourse and discussion between those with different experiences and outlooks that is essential to law reform and to democracy.”
Bauer and Goldsmith write about presidential power at “Executive Functions,” a widely read Substack publication that analyzes constitutional and legal issues surrounding the presidency. The publication, which has over 11,000 subscribers, features analysis from “two former senior government lawyers from different political backgrounds and administrations” who “decode the presidential power issues and controversies of the day.”
Bauer and Goldsmith discussed their Electoral Count Act reform work on the podcast “Reasonably Speaking” in an episode jointly produced by the ALI and the Bolch Judicial Institute, and their scholarship on electoral reform has appeared in Judicature, the flagship publication of the Bolch Judicial Institute. Most recently, Bauer and Goldsmith discussed current challenges facing the judiciary at a May 2025 program sponsored by Judicature and published in the journal.
About the Raphael Lemkin Rule of Law Guardian Medal
The Lemkin Rule of Law Guardian program honors the legacy of Raphael Lemkin, a Polish scholar and lawyer who joined the Duke Law faculty as a refugee during World War II. Lemkin dedicated his life to the study of war crimes and developed both the term and concept of genocide, advocating the use of criminal law to defend peace and prosecute crimes against humanity. The medal, first awarded in 2020, recognizes individuals who protect and defend the rule of law in their everyday work, continuing Lemkin’s mission of using legal frameworks to combat injustice and preserve human dignity.
Previous Lemkin Medal recipients include Esther Salas, U.S. district judge for the District of New Jersey (2024), who worked to pass federal legislation protecting judges and their families; Harold Hongju Koh, Yale Law professor (2023), recognized for his leadership in international law and human rights; and James E. Coleman Jr., Duke Law professor (2022), honored for his work in criminal justice reform and the wrongful convictions clinic; and Benjamin B. Ferencz (2020), the chief prosecutor for the United States in the Einsatzgruppen Case at Nuremberg, who dedicated his career to international justice and the establishment of the International Criminal Court.
🔗 Learn more about the Lemkin Medal at judicialstudies.duke.edu/lemkin.