Areas of Specialization
Civil Procedure; Conflict of Laws; Constitutional Law; Continental Philosophy; Federal Courts; Jurisprudence; Philosophy of Law; Professional Responsibility
Currently Teaching
Civil Procedure; Professional Responsibility
Representative Professional Activities and Achievements
Joined the faculty in 2006 after teaching law at George Mason Law School. Clerked for Judge Richard A. Posner on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Practiced law at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City. Was assistant professor of philosophy at Tufts University and visiting lecturer in philosophy at the University of Alabama (Huntsville), Wesleyan University and Yale University.
Author of Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition (2002) and numerous articles and essays, including publications in the Duke Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, and the Virginia Law Review.
Scholarly Publications
Books
- Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition (International Nietzsche Studies Series, U. Ill. Press 2002).
Articles
- Choice of Law as General Common Law: A Reply to Professor Brilmayer, in The Role of Ethics in Private International Law (Donald Earl Childress III (ed.), Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2012)
- Review Essay. Leiter on the Legal Realists, ___ Law & Phil. ___ (forthcoming 2011) (reviewing Brian Leiter, Naturalizing Jurisprudence (Oxford U. Press 2007)).
- Horizontal Erie and the Presumption of Forum Law, 109 Mich. L. Rev. 1237 (2011). SSRN.
- Erie's Suppressed Premise, 95 Minn. L. Rev. 1111 (2011). SSRN.
- Two Fallacies about Copyrighting Factual Compilations, in Intellectual Property Protection of Fact-Based Works: Copyright and Its Alternatives 109 (Robert Brauneis ed., Edward Elgar Press 2009). SSRN.
- Kelsen, Quietism and the Rule of Recognition, in The Rule of Recognition and the United States Constitution 351 (Matt D. Adler and Kenneth E. Himma eds., Oxford Univ. Press 2009). SSRN.
- Why Protect Private Arms Possession? Nine Theories of the Second Amendment, 84 Notre Dame L. Rev. 131 (2008). SSRN.
- Does Dworkin Commit Dworkin's Fallacy?, 28 Oxford J. Legal Stud. 33 (2008).
- Explaining Tort Law, 48 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1953 (2007) (symposium introduction).
- Review Essay. Dworkin v. The Philosophers, 2007 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1477 (reviewing Ronald Dworkin, Justice in Robes (2006)). SSRN.
- Legal Realism as Theory of Law, 46 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1915 (2005). SSRN.
- Halpin on Dworkin's Fallacy: A Surreply, 91 Va. L. Rev. 187 (2005). SSRN.
- Legal Revolutions: Six Mistakes About Discontinuity in the Legal Order, 83 N.C. L. Rev. 331 (2005). SSRN.
- White and Clark on Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition: A Response, 36 Int'l Stud. Phil. 169 (2005).
- Nietzsche's Place in Nineteenth Century German Philosophy, 47 Inquiry 168 (2004) (reviewing Will Dudley, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom (Cambridge U. Press 2002)).
- Dworkin's Fallacy, or What the Philosophy of Language Can't Teach Us About the Law, 89 Va. L. Rev. 1897 (2003). SSRN.
- Hans Kelsen and the Logic of Legal Systems, 54 Ala. L. Rev. 365 (2003). SSRN.
- Copyrighting Facts, 78 Ind. L.J. 919 (2003). SSRN.
- The Paradox of Auxiliary Rights: The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 52 Duke L.J. 113 (2002). SSRN.
- The Privilege's Last Stand: The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination and the Right to Rebel Against the State, 65 Brook. L. Rev. 627 (1999).
- Note, Legal Realism, Lex Fori, and the Choice-of-Law Revolution, 104 Yale L.J. 967 (1995).
- Nietzsche on Pity and Ressentiment, 24 Int'l Stud. in Phil. 63 (1992).
