Walter Olson is a commentator, author and critic best known for his work on American law. A senior fellow at the Cato Institute, the think tank in Washington, D.C., he has written a series of widely acclaimed books on our legal system, beginning with The Litigation Explosion and most recently Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America (Encounter, 2011). On the web, he founded and continues to run Overlawyered.com, widely cited as the oldest blog on law as well as one of the most popular. The Washington Post has described him an "intellectual guru of tort reform".

His writing appears regularly in such publications as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and he has been a columnist for Great Britain's Times Online as well as Reason. He has advised public officials at all levels, appeared on hundreds of broadcast shows including "Oprah", and testified before Congress.