Steven Semeraro
J.D., Stanford Law School, with distinction
B.A., Rutgers, with highest honors
Professor Semeraro joined the TJSL faculty in 1999, served Associate Dean from 2002-2024 and returned to the general faculty in 2007. After graduating from Stanford Law School, he clerked for the Honorable Stephanie K. Seymour, United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and then practiced with a private firm in Washington, D.C. In 1994, he joined the United States Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, where he led civil antitrust investigations of the optical disc and credit card industries. In 1996, he served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern Division of Virginia, prosecuting criminal cases.
In 2003, he authored the Law Professors’ Amicus Brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Verizon v. Trinko. He also plays in a rock & roll band with two other professors and two TJSL alumni. They are called The Innocent Bystanders, and you can hear them on Spotify. He previously taught as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and at Georgetown Law School. He has published numerous articles primarily in the fields of antitrust and criminal law.
Courses include:
Antitrust, Civil Procedure, Intellectual Property & Competition Law, Property I & II
Books
An Introduction to Property Law in the U.S. (2d ed. Semaphore Press 2018)
Antitrust Law: A Context and Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press 2015)
Articles, Book Chapters, And Article-Length Works
Assessing the Competitive Effects of Surcharging Payment Mechanisms, 26 U. Miami Bus. L. Rev. 29 (2018)
Partisan Gerrymandering: Is There No Shame in It or Have Politicians Become Shameless, 48 Memphis L. Rev. (forthcoming 2017)
Interpreting the Constitution's Elegant Specificities, 65 Buff. L. Rev. 547 (2017)
Settlement Without Consent: Assessing the Credit Card Merchant Fee Class Action, 2015 Colum. Bus. L. Rev. 186 (2015)
Worse Than the Tower of Babel?: Remedying Antitrust’s False Dichotomy Through De Novo Appellate Review, 5 Wm. & Mary Bus. L. Rev. 413 (2014)
Should the eBooks Case Presage the Decline of the Per Se and Market Share Doctrines , 35 T. Jefferson L. Rev. 15 (2013) (previously published in a slightly different form at CPI Antitrust Chronicle 1 (June 2012))
Assessing the Costs & Benefits of Credit Card Rewards: A Response to Who Gains and Who Loses from Credit Card Payments? Theory and Calibrations, 25 Consumer L. Rev. (2013)
Property’s End: Does Competition Policy Limit the Right of Publicity?, 43 Conn. L. Rev. 753 (2011)
Should Antitrust Condemn Tying Arrangements that Increase Price Without Restraining Competition: Responding to Einer Elhauge Tying, Bundled Discounts, and the Death of the Single Monopoly Profit Theory, 123 Harv. L. Rev. F. 30 (2009)
Is the National Football League a ‘Single Entity’ Incapable of Conspiring Under the Sherman Act?: The Supreme Court Will Decide, 32 Th. Jefferson L. Rev. 1 (2009)
Credit Card Interchange Fees: Debunking Six Myths, 7 The ICFAI U. J. of Banking Law 8 (2009)
Are Professional Sports Leagues Single Entities Incapable of Conspiring in Violation of the Sherman Act?: The Supreme Court Ponders Whether to Decide the Issue in American Needle v. NFL, 5 GPC at http://www.globalcompetitionpolicy.org/index.php?&id=1704 &action=907 (May 2009)
The Economic Benefits of Credit Card Merchant Restraints: A Response to Adam Levitin, 56 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. Discourse 25 (2009)
The Antitrust Economics (and Law) of Surcharging Credit Card Transactions, 14 Stan. J.L. Bus. & Fin. 343 (2009)
The Reverse-Robin-Hood-Cross-Subsidy Hypothesis: Do Credit Card Systems Effectively Tax the Poor to Reward the Rich?, 40 Rutgers L.J. 419 (2009)
Sweet Land of Property?: The History, Symbols, Rhetoric, and Theory Behind the Ordering of the Rights to Liberty and Property in the Constitutional Lexicon, 60 S.C. L. Rev. 1 (2008)
Credit Card Interchange Fees: Debunking Six Myths, Banking and Financial Services Pol’y Rep. (2008)
Credit Card Interchange Fees: Three Decades of Antitrust Uncertainty, 14 Geo. Mason L Rev. 941 (2007)
Enforcing Fourth Amendment Rights Through Federal Habeas Corpus, 58 Rutgers L. Rev. 983 (2006) reprinted in Habeas Corpus Theory & Practice (ed. G. Chandana 2008) and reprinted in abridged form 34 Search & Seizure L. Rep. 49 (2007)
Two Theories of Habeas Corpus, 71 Brooklyn L. Rev. 1233 (2006)
Reconfirming Habeas Corpus (Published online on H-Law (January, 2004), http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=8755), (reviewing Eric M Freedman, Habeas Corpus: Rethinking the Great Writ of Liberty (2001)), reprinted in 27 T. Jefferson L. Rev. 317 (2005)
A Reasoning Process Review Model for Federal Habeas Corpus, 94 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 897 (2004)
Forced Sharing, Efficiency, and Fairness: An Examination of the Essence of Antitrust, 52 Kan. L. Rev. 57 (2003)
Speta on Antitrust and Local Competition Under the Telecommunications Act: A Comment Respecting the Accommodation of Antitrust and Telecom Regulation, 71 Antitrust L.J. (2003)
An Essay on Property Rights in Milestone Homerun Baseballs, 56 So. Meth. U.L. Rev. 2281 (2003)
The Antitrust-Telecom Connection, 40 San Diego L. Rev. A. 555 (2003)
Regulating Information Platforms: The Convergence to Antitrust, 1 J. On Telecomm. & High Tech. L. 143 (2002)
Responsibility in Capital Sentencing, 39 San Diego L. Rev. 79 (2002)
From Blueprints to Baseball: A Survey of Current Baseball Stadium Financing Projects – San Diego, 34 Urban Lawyer 389 (2002)
Criminal Law: Substantive Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, Social Sciences and Humanities: Law, § 6.31.2.4 (UNESCO-Eolss, 2002) (published online, http://www.eolss.net) (with Marjorie Cohn & Ruth B. Philips)
Telecommunications Law: The United States Model for Economic Regulation of Telecommunications Providers, in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, Social Sciences and Humanities: Law, § 6.31.2.9 (UNESCO-Eolss, 2002) (published online, http://www.eolss.net)
Demystifying Antitrust State Action Doctrine, 24 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2000)
Abortion Clinic Protest and the First Amendment, 8 St. Louis U. Pub. L. Rev. 221 (1993)
The Process of Death: Reflections on Capital Punishment Issues in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, 66 Denv. L. Rev. 563 (1989)
Distinguishing International From Domestic Predation: A New Approach To Predatory Dumping, 23 Stan. J. Int'l. L. 621 (1987)
Toward An Optimal System of Successor Liability For Hazardous Waste Cleanup, 6 Stan. Envtl. L.J. 226 (1987Edit
Other Scholarship
The Economics and Regulation of Credit Card Interchange Fees, The Willard InterContinental, Washington, DC, June 9, 2010
Credit Card Interchange Fees: Three Decades of Antitrust Uncertainty, Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies, Loyola University, Chicago, IL, Apr. 14, 2007
The Thomas Jefferson School of Law faculty is highly prolific in the field of legal scholarship and our professors are in demand as speakers and panelists at legal events in the U.S. and abroad.