Paul S. Hayes is The George Washington University Director of Debate. While at GWU, Paul has been responsible for designing and directing public debate and dialogue initiatives with NASA, the Policy Studies Institute, and the Embassies of France, Germany, Rwanda and South Africa. Since Paul's arrival at GW in 2012, GWDebaters have won top awards as speakers and advanced to elimination rounds at the nation's leading civic debate tournaments including the Lafayette Debates, the NASA Debates, the Morehouse Social Justice Debates, and the Mvubu Debates.  During Paul's time as a coach at Michigan State University, Paul helped MSU win the 1995 CEDA national college debate championship and a first round bid to the 1996 National Debate Tournament.  As college seniors, Paul and his partner led their squad to the 1994 CEDA national debate championship by winning eight of the eleven tournaments they attended including a record-setting stretch of thirty six consecutive victories. 

A graduate of the New York University School of Law (Class of '01), Paul was a litigator and international competition attorney at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLC, prior to joining GWU in 2011. As an attorney Paul represented Fortune 100 companies including Microsoft and JP Morgan and co-authored an article on the antitrust implications of new technology standards favorably cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in FTC v. Rambus Inc. While at NYU, Paul served on the NYU Law Review and as a teaching assistant to civil rights scholar Professor Derrick A. Bell. Prior to attending NYU, Paul worked at the South African Department of Justice as an intern to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela. He is the founding Co-Director of the French Embassy Center of Excellence in Washington D.C.  

Paul is an advocacy and communication consultant for higher education institutions, businesses, government and non-profit organizations including the Smithsonian Institute, Delaware Investments, Brightspark Travel, and NASA.  Contact.