Paul M. Barrett

Paul Barrett joined the Center as deputy director in September 2017 after spending more than three decades as a journalist and author focusing on the intersection of business, law, and society. Most recently, Paul worked for 12 years for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, where he served at different times as the editor of an award-winning investigative team and a writer covering topics such as energy and the environment, military procurement, and the civilian firearm industry. From 1986 to 2005, he wrote for The Wall Street Journal, serving as the newspaper’s Supreme Court correspondent and later as the page one special projects editor.

Paul is the author of four critically acclaimed nonfiction books, the most recent of which are GLOCK: The Rise of America’s Gun (2012), a New York Times Bestseller, and LAW OF THE JUNGLE: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who’d Stop at Nothing to Win (2014). Both of those books have been optioned for Hollywood movies.

Since 2008, Paul has served as an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law. He co-teaches a seminar called “Law, Economics, and Journalism,” in which students learn to analyze social issues with the tools of those three professions.

Paul has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an A.B. from Harvard College.