Bert Gall serves as a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice.  Bert litigates property rights cases across the country.   Most recently, he represented home and business owners in Norwood v. Horney, the first eminent domain abuse case to be argued in front of and decided by a state supreme court in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous decision in Kelo v. City of New London.   In the Norwood case, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected the Kelo decision and held that the City of Norwood could not use eminent domain to take ordinary homes and businesses for private development.   Also, through litigation and grassroots efforts, Bert helped a neighborhood in Lakewood, Ohio, get its blight designation reversed.  From August 2005 through August 2006, Bert directed the legislative, grassroots and education activities of the Castle Coalition's "Hands Off My Home" campaign.   The campaign's goal is to achieve real reform that will protect ordinary Americans against the abuse of eminent domain. 

Bert is the author of The Past Should Not Shackle the Present: The revival of a legacy of Religious Bigotry by Opponents of School Choice.  He received his law degree from Duke University in 1999, where he served as an articles editor on the staff of Law and Contemporary Problems.  He received his undergraduate degree from Rice University in 1996 where he majored in History and Political Science.   Before coming to the Institute, he spent two years in private practice at a large firm in Charlotte, where he worked on a wide variety of commercial litigation cases.   After law school, he clerked for Judge Karen Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.