Joseph Hassett balances his achievements in law with a passion for Irish culture and academia. He is both an accomplished lawyer and Yeats scholar. His new book, W.B. Yeats and the Muses, published by Oxford University Press, will be reviewed in our next issue.
A graduate of Canisius College, Harvard University and University College, Dublin, where he earned his MA and PhD, Joe is a member of the bar in Washington, D.C. and New York and has argued in   appellate courts all over the country and in the United States Supreme Court. He is currently with Hogan Lovells, a firm based in D.C., with offices worldwide and a long history of being committed to recruiting, retaining, and promoting lawyers and others with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

A proud Irish American whose great-grandparents emigrated from counties Clare and Cork, Joe lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Carol Melton (the couple has two children) and serves as counsel to the Embassy of Ireland.

His interest in W.B. Yeats stems from the generosity of Irish Americans in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, who funded a scholarship that took him to the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo following his junior year in college in 1963.

Joe has lectured on Yeats and other Irish writers at such venues as the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo, the James Joyce Summer School in Dublin, the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco, and Oxford University.