My latest essay, "Common Sense and Candor in Rahimi and Beyond," is finally posted! It will be part of the symposium issue of the Cardozo Law Review for their 2026 symposium: "Umpires or Pinch Hitters? Twenty Years of the Roberts Court and American Democracy." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Along similar thematic lines, I have a piece newly up on SSRN about what the Trump Administration might have to teach us about libertarianism, Reichian/Naderite liberalism, and abundance liberalism. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Empowering and Fearing Government: Democratic Countervailing Power and the Future of the Administrative State
This essay examines three competing responses to the crisis of the administrative state in the Trump Era: libertarianism; proceduralist liberalism drawing on Ch
papers.ssrn.com
New draft paper on SSRN: "Fact Avoidance," forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review Supreme Court Issue. This Essay identifies a recurring feature where the Court decides presidential power cases entirely on legal grounds without engaging at all with the facts /1 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Fact Avoidance
<p><i><span>The legality of the President’s exercise of statutory power depends on questions of both law and fact. Yet courts often focus exclusively on the for
papers.ssrn.com
FINALLY up on SSRN - Melissa, Kate, & my paper - UNSETTLING THE PRESIDENCY! @profmmurray.bsky.social @kateshaw.bsky.social Brief excerpt from the abstract: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Available Soon From NYU Press: Law, Narrative, Narratology: Interdisciplinary Essays (Greta Olson and Simon Stern, editors) / H/T @simon8.bsky.social lawlit.blogspot.com/2026/07/avai...
Available Soon From NYU Press: Law, Narrative, Narratology: Interdisciplinary Essays (Greta Olson and Simon Stern, editors)
Soon available for purchase: Law, Narrative, Narratology: Interdisciplinary Essays (Greta Olson and Simon Stern, eds., New York Universit...
lawlit.blogspot.com
Working on finishing up a law review article for the upcoming submission cycle? ICYMI, the final version of @ksabeelrahman.bsky.social & my essay "The Part IV Problem in Legal Scholarship" is now online at the Columbia Law Review: columbialawreview.org/content/the-...
THE PART IV PROBLEM IN LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP - Columbia Law Review
Introduction As legal scholars, we have tremendous freedom to choose what we study and how we study it, to engage with the relationship between how law is and what legal arrangements might help move u...
columbialawreview.org
Delighted to be part of this great collection. Thanks to @anatapoff.bsky.social and Guy Charles for bringing it together! For more, see hls.harvard.edu/america-unfi...
America Unfinished - Harvard Law School
As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, “America Unfinished” brings together more than 60 legal scholars from the Harvard Law School faculty, each writing ...
hls.harvard.edu
MIT Press@mitpress.bsky.social · last mo.Out 7/7: An essay collection on the challenges, risks, and opportunities of this historic moment in American law and governance. Featuring essays by more than 50 Harvard Law School faculty members, including Stephen Breyer, Jill Lepore, & Annette Gordon-Reed. mitpress.mit.edu/978026206043...
We are All Constitutional Pluralists (Originalism is Dead): Just ask Justice Brett Kavanaugh: www.dorfonlaw.org/2026/07/we-a...
We are All Constitutional Pluralists Now: Just ask Justice Brett Kavanaugh
Twenty-eight years ago, I wrote an article summarizing a pair of essays written in 1900 by Arthur Machen, Jr., in the Harvard Law Review. M...
dorfonlaw.org
New paper from me: Reconstructing the Civil Rights State After Democratic Backsliding. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
<p><b><span>Reconstructing the Civil Rights State After Democratic Backsliding</span></b></p>
<p>American civil rights law has always been tied to the project of building a multiracial democracy that guarantees full and equal membership in the community
papers.ssrn.com
1/2 I've posted a revised version of my paper on unitary executive theory and democratic accountability, now with a discussion of Slaughter and Cook at pp. 5-6. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Of Multiplicity and Accountability
<div> Unitary executive theory has, since <i>Myers v. United States</i>, been premised on a conception of democratic accountability. On this view, the presiden
papers.ssrn.com
Latest article from @ariezra.bsky.social and me on the evolution of trust and safety in @emorylawjournal.bsky.social —here it scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/cgi/viewcont...
scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu
Re-upping this piece. One thing to update: now Cook, rather than Wilcox, is “the court’s most supportive statement on agency independence in decades” Defending the Fed: agency independence in three dimensions www.scotusblog.com/2026/01/defe...
Defending the Fed: agency independence in three dimensions
scotusblog.com
As promised, here is my post critiquing today's badly flawed Supreme Court ruling upholding Trump's withdrawal of TPS status from Haitian and other migrants. There is irony that majority's reasoning also allows future presidents to grant TPS without limit: reason.com/volokh/2026/...
The Supreme Court's Badly Flawed Ruling in the Haiti TPS Case
NA In my last post, I explained why today's Supreme Court Second Amendment ruling was right. In this one, I…
reason.com
It is difficult to read the Supreme Court's opinions over the last week and not see the general trend toward accretion of Court power. Interpretive philosophies like originalism give way to "plain text" readings (by judges) and historical "standards," without any specific guidelines. /1
My critique of today's terrible Supreme Court Takings Clause/tax foreclosure decision. It gets principles and precedent wrong, and is likely to have awful consequences: reason.com/volokh/2026/...
Supreme Court Issues Terrible Takings Decision in Pung v. Isabella County
Today, the Supreme Court issued a terrible Takings Clause decision in Pung v. Isabella County. It's the worst Supreme Court…
reason.com
Examples of this Court closing doors to litigation left open (if narrowly) during the Kennedy era: Rucho (partisan gerrymandering), Vannoy (retroactive crim pro rights), and now Cisco Systems (alien tort suits).
