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Bert Gall

Managing Vice President and Senior Attorney

Bert Gall serves as Managing Vice President and Senior Attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he serves on the Management Team and oversees other teams, including Activism, Attorney Recruiting, the Center for Judicial Engagement, and Educational Choice.  During his over twenty years as an attorney at IJ, Bert has secured significant victories for economic liberty, educational choice, free speech, and property rights through strategic litigation and advocacy.

Bert started IJ’s National Street Vending Initiative, a nationwide effort to vindicate the economic liberty of street vendors by fighting unconstitutional vending restrictions in courts of law and the court of public opinion. He served as co-counsel in IJ’s successful challenge to El Paso’s protectionist restrictions on mobile vendors, which resulted in El Paso repealing those restrictions.  He also led IJ’s successful effort in 2013 to defeat proposed food-truck regulations that would have (by their anti-competitive design) crippled D.C.’s food-truck industry. 

In educational choice, Bert was IJ’s lead counsel in its successful legal defense of school choice programs in both Indiana and Alabama.  Bert also played an integral role in IJ’s two most recent landmark victories for educational choice at the U.S. Supreme Court, Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Rev. and Carson v. Makin.

Bert litigated in defense of free speech as co-counsel in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, in which IJ successfully challenged federal campaign finance laws’ restrictions on free speech and the right of association. He was lead counsel in the Institute’s successful challenge to Florida’s “electioneering communications” law, which required groups and individuals to register with the state and comply with onerous regulations if they merely wanted to mention candidates or ballot issues in their publications. Bert also successfully defended a group of home and business owners in Clarksville, Tenn., who were sued by two developers (one a local politician) for criticizing the developers and their local government for abusing the power of eminent domain for private development.

In the area of property rights, Bert served as co-counsel for home and business owners in Norwood v. Horney, the first eminent domain abuse case argued before and decided by a state supreme court in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Kelo decision. In ruling for the property owners, the Court unanimously held that taking private property for private economic development violates the Ohio Constitution. 

Bert received his law degree from Duke University in 1999, and he received his undergraduate degree from Rice University in 1996 where he majored in history and political science.  Before coming to IJ, he spent two years in private practice at a Helms Mulliss & Wicker in Charlotte, where he worked on a wide variety of commercial litigation cases. After law school, he clerked for Judge Karen Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Bert's Cases

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Bert's Research & Reports

Seven Myths and Realities about Food Trucks

Economic Liberty | Vending

Seven Myths and Realities about Food Trucks

Using facts and real-world examples, IJ shows that there is no basis for the argument that restaurants need government intervention to “protect” them from food trucks.

Food-Truck Freedom

Economic Liberty | Vending

Food-Truck Freedom

In order to foster the conditions that will let food trucks thrive, this report offers recommendations based on the legislative best practices of Los Angeles and other cities.

Streets of Dreams

Economic Liberty | Vending

Streets of Dreams

Street vending is, and always has been, a part of the American economy and a fixture of urban life. Thanks to low start-up costs, the trade has offered countless entrepreneurs—particularly immigrants and others with little…

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Bert's News, Articles & Publications

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Bert's Podcasts

February 27, 2026

Short Circuit 417 | Settling with Spicy Chicken

Litigation is a risky business. Borrowing tens of millions of dollars to win a lawsuit is even more risky. And it turns out makes settling […]

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