Robert Wechsler is a Connecticut-based author, translator, and independent publisher whose work centers on bringing Eastern European folk tales and literature to English-speaking readers. A graduate of Columbia Law School, he left the legal profession to found Catbird Press, a small literary house dedicated to international fiction and translation. He is the author of Performing Without a Stage: The Art of Literary Translation and has spent decades advocating for translators as creative artists in their own right.

Wechsler joined City Ethics, Inc. in late 2006 as Director of Research, and instead of starting with a simple blog post, he launched the City Ethics Model Code Project, a structured, chapter-by-chapter framework addressing declarations of policy, conflicts of interest, penalties, and the broader role of ethics codes in municipal government. His first opinion piece, “Conflict of Interest or Expertise?,” appeared in January 2007, and he went on to become the site’s most prolific author, writing thousands of articles that analyzed government ethics cases from across the United States and revising Local Government Ethics into a foundational resource for ethics practitioners that remains available through City Ethics. He retired as Director of Research in March 2016 but his work continues to influence best practices in local government ethics and conflicts-of-interest regulation.