Brian Highsmith is a Ph.D. student in Government and Social Policy at Harvard University and an affiliated Senior Researcher at the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law. His research explores connections between economic inequality, residential segregation, fiscal federalism, corporate power, mass punishment, and social democracy. After graduating from Yale Law School in 2017, he was a Skadden Fellow at the National Consumer Law Center; his litigation and advocacy there challenged the unaffordable financial obligations that are imposed by private companies on poor families as a result of their contact with the criminal system. Before joining NCLC, he worked in DC on domestic economic policy with a focus on income support programs and fiscal policy—including as an advisor at President Obama’s National Economic Council, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the office of Senator Cory Booker.

Project: Municipal Hoarding and the Fragmentation of Local Tax Bases