With the Lloyd Cutler Distinguished Visitorship the American Academy in Berlin honors one of its founding trustees, the legendary attorney Lloyd N. Cutler. In 1962 Lloyd Cutler cofounded Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, which included over 500 lawyers representing corporate and industrial clients. Aside from his expertise and authority in the private sector, Lloyd Cutler became deeply involved in some of the most pressing issues facing the federal government during the past century. Working for six presidential administrations, he advised on matters ranging from the Iranian hostage crisis to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the Whitewater investigation. Still other facets of Cutler’s curiosity and intellect led him to other pursuits: teaching at the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies and serving as a director of the Metropolitan Opera.

This endowed program in his name brings the best of the American legal world to Berlin to interact with German colleagues, counterparts, and the interested public on mutually relevant issues of domestic and international law. The Academy has in recent years hosted exceptional guests in the field of law and aims to address the need for more intense dialogue about and public discussion of current and strategic legal aspects. On December 15, 2008 Associate Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer gave the inaugural Lloyd Cutler Lecture entitled “The Court and the Constitution: The Counter Example of Dred Scott.”

We are grateful to the following donors for supporting this outstanding initiative: WilmerHale, C.H. Beck Stiftung (Wolfgang Beck), Georg Graf zu Castell-Castell, Reuben Clark, Christian Crones, Stephen Cutler, Paul P. Eckert, Jutta von Falkenhausen, Dennis Flannery, Gabriel Resources Ltd. (Joel Bell), C. Boyden Gray, Jan Heithecker, Dieter G. Lange, Carol F. Lee, William F. Lee, Daniel & Maeva Marcus, Stefan Ohlhoff, William J. Perlstein, Joseph Pillman, Lisa J. Pirozzolo, Ulrich Quack, Martin Seyfarth, Daniel H. Squire, Roland Steinmeyer, Verband der Deutschen Automobilindustrie (VDA) / Matthias Wissmann, Villa Grisebach (Berlin) / Bernd Schultz, and Micaela Kapitzky, John B. Watkins, David Westin, Jill J. and Roger M. Witten.