Randy J. Kozel

Associate Professor of Law


Office: 2118 Eck Hall of Law
Phone: 574.631.2727
Fax: 574.631.8078
Email: rkozel@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: Debi McGuigan Jones


SSRN: View


Randy J. Kozel joined the Law School faculty in 2011. He teaches and researches in fields including constitutional law, federal courts, and contract law, with a particular focus on the role of precedent in legal decisionmaking. His articles have appeared in numerous leading journals.

Professor Kozel received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was the Articles Committee Chair of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the U.S. Supreme Court, and for Judge Alex Kozinski at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has also practiced as a litigator with a large law firm and as special counsel in a corporate legal department.

Courses Taught

Contracts
Freedom of Speech
Legal Change Seminar

Scholarship

Selected Publications

Constitutional Precedent in the Second-Best World (in progress)

Institutions as Agencies: Autonomy, Deference, and the First Amendment, 112 Michigan Law Review (forthcoming 2014).

Settled Versus Right: Constitutional Method and the Path of Precedent 91 Texas Law Review (forthcoming 2013). Republished as abridged in Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court: Theory and Practice (Christopher J. Peters, ed.) (forthcoming 2013).

The Rule of Law and the Perils of Precedent, 111 Michigan Law Review First Impressions 37 (2013).

Precedent and Reliance, 62 Emory Law Journal (forthcoming 2013)

Free Speech and Parity: A Theory of Public Employee Rights, 53 William & Mary Law Review 1985 (2012). Republished as abridged at The Legal Workshop.

Administrative Change, 59 UCLA Law Review 112 (2011) (with Jeff Pojanowski)

Stare Decisis as Judicial Doctrine, 67 Washington & Lee Law Review 411 (2010)

Reconceptualizing Public Employee Speech, 99 Northwestern University Law Review 1007 (2005)

Solving the Nuisance-Value Settlement Problem: Mandatory Summary Judgment, 90 Virginia Law Review 1849 (2004) (with David Rosenberg)

Note, Locating Investment Asymmetries and Optimal Deterrence in the Mass Tort Class Action, 117 Harvard Law Review 2665 (2004)

Areas of Expertise

  • Constitutional Law
  • Constitutional Theory
  • Contracts
  • Federal Courts
  • Free Speech & Expressive Association
  • Judicial Process
  • Precedent & Legal Change
  • Stare Decisis
  • Supreme Court of the United States

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