Louise L Weinberg

Louise L Weinberg

  • William B. Bates Chair Emeritus for the Administration of Justice

Faculty Profile: Louise L Weinberg

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Biography

Louise Weinberg is holder of the Bates Chair and Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law. Weinberg teaches and writes in Constitutional Law. Federal Courts, and Conflict of Laws. She received her undergraduate degree summa from Cornell, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, holds two Harvard Law degrees, and clerked for Judge Wyzanski. She practiced in Boston as an associate in litigation with Bingham Dana & Gould, later Bingham McCutchen. She has taught at Harvard, Brandeis, Suffolk, and Stanford, and has received the Texas Exes' Excellence in Teaching Award. At Texas she has revived Charles Alan Wright's famous Supreme Court Seminar.  Weinberg is a member of the American Law Institute, and  serves as an invited Adviser to the ALI Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws. Professor Weinberg has chaired three different AALS Sections, thrice chairing the Section on Federal Courts, twice chairing the Section on Conflict of Laws, and chairing the Section on Admiralty. A frequently invited public speaker, she has served as a Forum Fellow of the World International Forum, Davos. Recently she appeared in the Public Broadcasting System's four-part series, "The Supreme Court."

In the field of Constitutional Law Weinberg's writings include Sovereign Immunity and Interstate Government TortUniversity of Michigan Journal of Law Reform (2020); Luther v. Borden, A Taney-Court Mystery Solved, Pace Law Review (2017); A General Theory of Governance: Due Process and Lawmaking Power, William & Mary Law Review (2013); Unlikely Beginnings of Modern Constitutional Thought, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law (2012); The McReynolds Mystery Solved, University of Denver Law Review (2011); An Almost Archeological Dig: Substantive Due Process, An Early View, Constitutional Commentary (2010); Dred Scott and the Crisis of 1860, Symposium, Chicago-Kent Law Review (2007); Our Marbury, Virginia Law Review (2003); and When Courts Decide Elections: The Constitutionality of Bush v. Gore, Symposium, Boston University Law Review (2002).

In the field of Federal Courts, Weinberg is author of Federal Courts: Judicial Federalism and Judicial Power (1994). Her recent work in the field includes Back to the Future: The New General Common Law, Symposium, Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce (2004); Of Sovereignty and Union: The Legends of Alden, Notre Dame Law Review (2001); and The Article III Box, Symposium, Texas Law Review (2000).

In the field of Conflict of Laws, Weinberg is co-author of The Conflict of Laws (2002). Her work in this field includes Age of Unreason:  Rationality and the Regulatory State, 20 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 1 (2020) (forthcoming); A Radical Transformation for Conflicts Restatements, Symposium, Illinois Law Review (2015, pub. 2016 ); What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Extraterritoriality, Symposium, Cornell Law Review (2015); and Theory Wars in the Conflict of Laws, Michigan Law Review (2005).

In the field of Legal Theory and Jurisprudence, Weinberg's writings include Of Theory and Theodicy: The Problem of Immoral Law, in Law and Justice in a Multistate World (2002) and Choosing Law, Giving Justice, Symposium, Louisiana Law Review (2000).

Weinberg is author of such classic articles as Our MarburyViriginia Law Review (2003), Federal Common Law, Northwestern Law Review (1989) and The New Judicial Federalism, Stanford Law Review (1977), and such provocative essays as Holmes' Failure, Michigan Law Review (1997) and Against Comity, Georgetown Law Journal (1991). She is a contributor to legal encyclopedias for the Oxford and Yale University Presses. Her pieces for the general public have appeared in The American Scholar, The Public Interest, and Daedalus.