Meryl Chertoff is the executive director of Project on State and Local Government Policy and Law (SALPAL) and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law. SALPAL has taken an active online role commenting on the role of governors and state public health agencies in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.
From 2009 to 2019, Chertoff served as the executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Justice and Society Program. Among her notable work at Aspen was direction of seminars for judges, lawyers, and state government officials, creation of the Inclusive America Project, and direction of the Sandra Day O’Connor Conversation. With the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, she directed two cohorts of the Excellence in State Public Health Law program.
Chertoff is also the managing editor of the Blog of State and Local Government Law (SLoGLaw Blog). She contributes opinion writing to the Hill, Bloomberg Law, and other publications, and speaks regularly to international visitors on American federalism. She serves on the National Task Force on Election Crises and is a member of the Board of ChangeLab Solutions.
From 2006-2009, she directed the Sandra Day O’Connor Project at Georgetown Law on judicial independence and civic education.
Chertoff has had a variety of positions in and around state government. She was director of the New Jersey Washington Office, served on the legislative staff of a New Jersey Assembly leader, and worked as a lobbyist in Trenton. She worked in the Office of Legislative Affairs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) participating in the agency’s transition into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.
She is a graduate of Harvard College and Law School, and served as a law clerk to Federal District Judge Myron H. Thompson (M.D. Ala). She is admitted to the Bar in New York and New Jersey, is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and was an ABA Advisor to the Uniform Law Commission’s Study Committee on State Governance During Public Health Emergencies.