Professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Esq.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is a professor, teaching courses in Election Law, Corporate Governance, Business Entities, and Constitutional Law at Stetson University College of Law. She is also a Brennan Center Fellow. Prior to joining Stetson's faculty, Professor Torres-Spelliscy was counsel in the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law where she provided guidance on the issues of money in politics and the judiciary to state and federal lawmakers. She was an associate at Arnold & Porter LLP and a staffer for Senator Richard Durbin. She hold degrees from Harvard (BA Magna Cum Laude) and Columbia Law School (JD).

She researches and speaks publicly on campaign finance law as well as judicial selection. She has spoken at symposia at 36 universities around the nation, including Harvard and Stanford. She presented at the 2013, the 2015, the 2018, and the 2019 Annual Conventions of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and at the 2014 and the 2018 Annual Convention of the American Constitution Society (ACS), and the 2011, the 2014, and the 2016 Annual Conventions of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL). In 2016 she spoke at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) at a forum on dark money and foreign money in U.S. elections. In 2018, she spoke at the International Society of Public Law's ICON-S conference in Hong Kong.

She is the author of the book Corporate Citizen? An Argument for the Separation of Corporation and State (Carolina Academic Press, 2016) and the book Political Brands (Edward Elgar forthcoming 2019). Professor Torres-Spelliscy has testified before Congress, and state and local legislative bodies as an expert on campaign finance reform. She has also helped draft legislation and Supreme Court briefs.

As well as publishing in law reviews, such as the NYU Law Review Online, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy, and the Montana Law Review, Professor Torres-Spelliscy has also been quoted by the media in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times, Time, Bloomberg, Mother Jones, Newsweek on Air, SCOTUS Blog, Politico, Slate, The National Journal, USA Today, L.A. Times, Boston Globe, NBC.com, Vox, VICE, WMNF, Sirius Radio, National Public Radio, Fox, Voice America, CSPAN, DNA TV, and NY1.

In 2014, Stetson University College of Law awarded Professor Torres-Spelliscy the Dickerson-Brown award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship. In 2013, Professor Torres-Spelliscy was named as a member of the Lawyers of Color's "50 Under 50" list of minority law professors making an impact in legal education. She was awarded tenure in 2016. In 2017 she was awarded the Leroy Highbaugh Sr. Research Chair at Stetson. In 2018, she was Chair of the AALS Section on Election Law.