Stephen Fain Williams (born September 23, 1936) is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Williams was born on September 23, 1936, in New York City, New York, the son of prominent lawyer C. Dickerman Williams. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, in 1958 from Yale College, where he was a member of the Manuscript Society. He received a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, in 1961 from Harvard Law School. He was in the United States Army Reserve as a Private E-2 from 1961 to 1962. He engaged in private practice from 1962 to 1966 and became an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1966. From 1969 until his appointment to the bench, he taught at the University of Colorado School of Law. During this time, he also served as a Visiting Professor of Law at UCLA, University of Chicago Law School, and Southern Methodist University and was a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States and the Federal Trade Commission.
Williams was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on February 19, 1986, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated by Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 13, 1986, and received commission on June 16, 1986. He assumed senior status on September 30, 2001.
Judge Williams is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles. His most recent work is Liberal Reform in an Illiberal Regime, 1906–1915: The Creation of Private Property in Russia, a book described by former acting Prime Minister of Russia Yegor Gaidar as "absolutely splendid".
The Natural Gas Revolution of 1985, 1985Cases on Oil and Gas Law (With R. Maxwell, P. Martin and B. Kramer), 6th ed., 1992Subjectivity, Expression & Privacy: Problems of Aesthetic Regulation, 62 Minnesota Law Review 1, 1977Running Out: The Problem of Exhaustible Resources, 7 Journal of Legal Studies 165, 1978Solar 'Access' and Property Rights: A Maverick Analysis, 11 Connecticut Law Review 430, 1979Implied Covenants for Development and Exploration in Oil and Gas Leases - The Determination of Profitability, 27 Kansas Law Review 443, 1979The Static Conception of the Common Law: A Comment, 9 Journal of Legal Studies 277, 1980Getting Downtown - Relief of Highway Congestion Through Pricing, Regulation, p. 45, March/April, 1981Implied Covenants in Oil and Gas Leases: Some General Principles, 29 Kansas Law Review 153, 1981An Energy Policy Perspective on Solar Hot Water Equipment Mandates, 1 UCLA Journal on Environmental Law and Policy 135, 1981'Liberty' In the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments: The Intentions of the Framers, 53 Colorado Law Review 117, 1981Severance Taxes: The Supreme Court's Role in Preserving a National Common Market for Energy Supplies, 53 Colorado Law Review 281, 1982Liberty and Property: The Problem of Government Benefits, 12 Journal of Legal Studies 3, 1983The Requirement of Beneficial Use as a Cause of Waste in Water Resource Development, 23 Natural Resource Journal 7, 1983Energy Policy in the Cold Light of Morning, 61 Texas Law Review 571, 1983Free Trade in Water Resources: Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas, 2 S. Ct. Economic Review 89, 1984Implied Covenants' Threat to the Value of Oil and Gas Reserves, 36 Institute on Oil and Gas Law and Taxation, Chapter 3, 1985Federal Preemption of State Conservation Laws After the Natural Gas Policy Act: A Preliminary Look, 56 Colorado Law Review 521, 1985The Proposed Sea-Change in Natural Gas Regulation, 6 Energy Law Journal 233, 1985The Law of Prior Appropriation: Possible Lessons for Hawaii 25 Natural Resource Journal 911, 1985The Legal Integration of Energy Markets (With Terence Daintith) Vol. 5 of Integration Through Law: Europe and the American Federal Experience, 1987Second Best: The Soft Underbelly of Deterrence Theory in Tort, 106 Harvard Law Review 932, 1993Hybrid Rulemaking, Under the Administrative Procedure Act: A Legal and Empirical Analysis, 42 University of Chicago Law Review 401, 1975Panel: Culpability, Restitution, and the Environment: The Vitality of { Common Law Rules 21 Ecology Law Quarterly, 559, 1994Unconstitutional Conditions Through a Libertarian Prism Public Interest Law Review, 159, 1994Legal Versus Non-Legal Theory 17 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 79, Winter, 1997Court-Gazing: Reviews of David C. Savage, Turning Right: The Making of the REhnquist Supreme Court, and H.W. Perry, Jr., Deciding to Decide: Agenda Setting in the United States Supreme Court, 91 Michigan Law Review, 1158, 1993The Roots of Deference (Review of Christopher F. Edley, Jr., Administrative Law: Rethinking Judicial Control of Bureaucracy) 100 Yale Law Journal 1103, 1991Background Norms in the Regulatory State, (Review of Cass R. Sunstein, After the Rights Revolution: Reconceiving the Regulatory State) 58 University of Chicago Law Review 419, 1991Fingers in the Pie (Review of Jeremy Rabkin, Judicial Compulsions: How Public Law Distorts Public Policy) 68 Texas Law Review 1303, 1990Review of Morton Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 25 UCLA Law Review 1187, 1978Review of Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law, 45 University of Colorado Law Review 437-53, 1974Fixing the Rate of Return After Duquesne, 8 Yale Journal on Reg. 159, 1991Pollution Control: Taxes v. Regulation (International Institute for Economic Research, Original Paper 23), August, 1979Optimizing Water Use: The Return Flow Issue, 44 University of Colorado Law Review 301, 1973Risk Regulation and Its hazards: Review of Stephen Breyer, Breaking the Vicious Circle, 93 Mich. L. Rev. 1498, 1995Deregulatory Takings and Breach of the Regulatory Contract: A Comment 71 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1000, 1996
