Stephan Kinsella

N. Stephan Kinsella is from a small town near Baton Rouge, Lousiana, and received B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from LSU in Baton Rouge (1987, 1990, respectively). He received his law degree from Paul M. Hebert Law Center of LSU in 1991. He then lived in London for the 1991-92 school year, to study international law at King's College London-University of London; He received his LL.M. (masters in law) in international business law in 1992. He is married to Cindy DeLaney; they have a son, Ethan, born 2003.

He has been interested in libertarian matters since 1983 or so (thanks in part to the influence of Ayn Rand, later Rothbard, Mises, and others). After a brief semi-Objectivist phase, in early college he discovered Rothbard, Hazlitt, Bastiat, Mises, the Tannehills, etc. This led him to veer more towards libertarianism, and then to anarcho-capitalism. Later he began to put more emphasis on Austrian economics and paleolibertarian insights of Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Rockwell.

He has written on libertarian rights and related topics such as legal theory, as well as mainstream legal topics, since 1991. He is actively involved with the Mises Institute. He is especially interested in rights theory, Austrian economics, anarcho-capitalist theory, and applications of libertarian principles to legal topics, such as contract theory, inalienability, property law, intellectual property, punishment theory, and the like.