The Law Reform Institute aims to foster direct dialogue among stakeholders to develop draft text for legislation. Most legislation is
drafted through a process in which the main stakeholders—those who will support or oppose enactment—never directly address each other's
concerns. Any debate happens only indirectly, through lobbying of individual lawmakers, through attempts to shape public opinion, and through
dueling testimony at hearings.
The Law Reform Institute believes a better way exists. We aim to bring together stakeholders with different perspectives to work through draft bills
line by line, allowing disagreements to crystalize and common ground to be revealed. Detailed discussions enable the development of legislative
approaches that would improve the status quo for everyone.
Key state legislation has been drafted this way for decades. State lawmakers have, on more than 6,000 occasions, enacted legislation developed by
the Uniform Law Commission, which convenes stakeholders for collaborative drafting
efforts. Several organizations also use similar approaches at the multilateral level. But this approach has not yet been adapted for use at the federal level.
The Law Reform Institute was founded to fill that gap. We focus on the details of bills so that disagreements on broader issues don't serve as roadblocks.
Before founding the Law Reform Institute, Tim successfully led similar efforts at the state and multilateral levels. From 2019 to 2025, he served as the Executive Director of the Uniform Law Commission, an organization formed by the governments of all 50 states to develop and seek enactment of model state legislation. He also spent a decade at the U.S. Department of State, where he served as the lead negotiator for several multilateral treaties and other instruments aimed at legal harmonization, including the Singapore Mediation Convention. He practiced law in the National Security group at WilmerHale and clerked for the Hon. Janice Rogers Brown on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School.
From 2012 to 2025, Joe was an attorney at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked on multilateral law reform issues as well as regulatory matters such as export controls and sanctions. He represented the U.S. government as head of delegation in several private international law negotiations at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and the Hague Conference on Private International Law. He also advised policy officials on defense trade controls, economic sanctions, and export controls, and served as in-house counsel on a range of litigation matters. Previously, he practiced law in WilmerHale's Litigation Department, focusing on international arbitration and government investigations. He received his J.D. from Columbia Law School.
Diane Boyer-Vine, Secretary
Cory Skolnick, Treasurer
Dan Crane, Reporter, Antitrust project
Advisory Board
Jane Bambauer
Nita Farahany
Eugene Volokh
Cam Ward
Dave Zvenyach
