2024 Distinguished Achievement Award
Dan Alban (00C) is a constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm that represents individuals whose constitutional rights have been violated by local, state or federal government. He specializes in litigating challenges to violations of economic liberty and property rights, including civil forfeiture, eminent domain abuse and occupational licensing regulations.
He launched his career at the Institute for Humane Studies in Arlington, Virginia, a nonprofit he connected with thanks to the recommendation of Berry mentors Dr. Peter Lawler and Dr. Frank Stephenson. He then earned his law degree cum laude from Harvard University's School of Law, where he served as executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
After Harvard, he practiced telecommunications litigation and media law at Wiley Rein, clerked for a federal judge and later practiced employment law at Littler Mendelson P.C.
Today, Dan helps clients recover their seized property in federal and state court cases across the country and co-directs the institute's National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse. He is a frequent contributor to print publications including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times and The ABA Litigation Journal and discusses legal issues on television and radio programs and podcasts such as FoxNews.com, CNBC's The Kudlow Report, and CSPAN's Washington Journal. He has testified before Congress on multiple issues.
Dan credits Berry with providing a foundation for his career through the individualized attention he received from Berry faculty who encouraged him to follow his interests and have high goals for his career. He adds that the combination of his undergraduate studies as an interdisciplinary political rhetoric major and his extracurricular activities on the speech and debate team allowed him to develop his reasoning, communication and persuasion skills—all of which are invaluable to him as a lawyer today. He first became interested in civil forfeiture as a student at Berry when he chose it as the topic for his persuasive speech and won numerous tournaments delivering it in national collegiate forensics competition.
