Michael Weisel

Bio

Michael Weisel teaches a two-semester United States constitutional law course exploring legal precedents from their origin through current Supreme Court rulings within a larger historical context.

A former Ph.D. candidate in Business History at Duke University and co-founder of H-NC Network, his dissertation explores how the steel industry and U. S. Navy forged new relationships through networks, technological advances, lobbying and negotiations during the end of the 19th Century.

Prior to academia, Michael Weisel was a portfolio manager and institutional pension fund advisor managing over $1.25 billion in assets with Wells Fargo and Kemper Financial for nearly 20 years.

Currently, as managing partner of the Capital Law Group, Mr. Weisel concentrates his legal practice in nonprofit law, campaign finance law and independent expenditure entities, corporate and real estate finance, and government affairs.

Michael Weisel serves as Vice Chair of the North Carolina Railroad Company, chartered in 1849, is the state’s oldest extant private business corporation. During his career, Mr. Weisel has served and held leadership roles on numerous corporate and civic boards, as well as being active in national and statewide politics.

This Reddit post from a former student sums up the courses nicely:

“I finished a minor in History in 2013 (CSC major). Dr. Weisel is a practicing attorney who teaches HI 443 / HI 444, which are a pair of classes on US Constitutional law (one is offered each semester, you can take them in either order). These were my favorite two courses that I took at NCSU (of any discipline) — both relatively small (around 15-20 students), and almost entirely comprised of upper level history majors and graduate students (I was one of the only non-majors, and maybe the only engineer that took the course those semesters, if memory serves). He’s very passionate about the material, and very engaging in class — and the structure of the class sessions (3 hours 1 night per week) lends itself well to engaging with the material and with the other students via discussions. If the subject sounds interesting to you, I completely recommend it. There is a lot of reading involved and you have to take the class seriously in order to do well, but it’s pretty great.”