Lee Epstein is the Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research and teaching interests center on law and legal institutions, especially the behavior of judges.
A recipient of 12 grants from the National Science Foundation, Epstein has authored or co-authored more than 130 articles and essays and 18 books, including The Choices Justices Make (co-authored with Jack Knight), which won the Pritchett Award for the Best Book on Law and Courts and, more recently, the Lasting Contribution Award “for a book or journal article, 10 years or older, that has made a lasting impression on the field of law and courts.”
The Constitutional Law for a Changing America series (co-authored with Thomas Walker), now in its 10th edition, received the Teaching and Mentoring Award from a section of the American Political Science Association (APSA).
Recent books are The Behavior of Federal Judges, with William M. Landes & Richard A. Posner (Harvard University Press); An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research, with Andrew D. Martin (Oxford University Press); and The Oxford Handbook on U.S. Judicial Behavior (edited with Stefanie A. Lindquist).
The religious right has made no secret of its expectation that President Trump will choose a socially conservative successor to the seat held by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And the president will likely deliver, further confirming the power of the religious right, writes Lee Epstein.
Trump’s success rate at the Supreme Court is quite low: He has prevailed only 47 percent of the time, a worse record than that of his predecessors going back at least as far as Franklin D. Roosevelt, writes Lee Epstein.
If President Joe Biden follows through on his promise to nominate a Black woman to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, longer-term change to the court is possible, based on voting patterns of Black female judges versus white male judges, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, visited Washington University in St. Louis twice during her career — in 1979 and 2001. She met with students and faculty, lectured and even contributed journal articles to the Washington University Law Quarterly and Washington University Journal of Law & Policy. Faculty from the School of Law reflect on her long and influential career.
If Justice Ginsburg, who had the most secular voting record of any justice since 1953, is replaced with a religious conservative like Justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch or Thomas, the court’s jurisprudence will veer even farther from the values she brought to the law.
President Donald Trump’s top picks to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court — Judges Amy Coney Barrett and Barbara Lagoa — would fall ideologically somewhere between Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, shifting the median of court far to the right, suggests a new analysis by Supreme Court experts at Washington University in St. Louis.
As Americans lose confidence in democratic institutions at the national level, the country’s least democratic branch of government looks better and better.
Reappropriation — by which a group of people reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group — can tame uncivil discourse, finds a new study by political scientists and a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
An experienced attorney, relative to a first-timer, increases the likelihood of winning a case by 14 percentage points and of capturing a justice’s vote by 11 percentage points.
Assaults on judicial independence are made easier when the public comes to view the judiciary as a political body. This risk, and not just the identity of the next justice, should be at the center of public attention.
The justices of the nation’s highest court have a bird’s-eye view of the nation’s discord. But Lee Epstein trains her binoculars on them as they do their work.
Lee Epstein, the Ethan A. H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor, has accepted a visiting professor appointment in comparative politics and in law at the University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway.
How might the makeup of the United States Supreme Court change depending on who is elected as the country’s next president? A new analysis from Washington University in St. Louis estimates where the candidate’s potential nominees fit compared with the current justices and finds that a Democratic appointee would move the middle of the court to the left, shifting the court’s balance of power.
Lee Epstein, the Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor, will receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association at the association’s annual meeting in September in Philadelphia.
Three experts on the Supreme Court from the School of Law will discuss the recent death of Antonin Scalia, his legacy and how his vacancy will be filled. The talk, “Justice Antonin Scalia: The Legacy and the Vacancy,” will be held from 12:05-1 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 17. It is free and open to the public.
