Randy J. Kozel
Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Academic Affairs
Fritz Duda Family Professor of Law
Office: 2118 Eck Hall of Law
Phone: 574-631-2727
Fax: 574-631-8078
Email: rkozel@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: Claire Shely
CV: View
SSRN: View
Randy Kozel joined the Law School faculty in 2011. He was named the Distinguished Teacher of the Year by the Class of 2014. He also directs the Notre Dame Program on Constitutional Structure.
Kozel teaches and researches on topics including the freedom of speech, judicial decision-making, constitutional structure, trademark law, and contract law. His book, Settled Versus Right: A Theory of Precedent, makes the case for using precedent to bridge interpretive disagreements.
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 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and for Judge Alex Kozinski at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. He has also practiced as a litigator with a large law firm and as Special Counsel to the General Counsel at General Electric Company.
Courses Taught
- Contracts
- Freedom of Speech
- Legal Change Seminar
- Information Privacy Law
- Evidence
- Statutory Interpretation
- Trademark and Unfair Competition
Scholarship
Books
- Settled Versus Right: A Theory of Precedent (Cambridge University Press 2017)
Selected Articles, Essays, and Reviews
- Content Under Pressure, 100 Washington University Law Review 59 (2022)
- Government Employee Speech and Forum Analysis, 1 Journal of Free Speech Law 579 (2022)
- Government Conditions as Contracts and Then Some, The New Rambler (2022) (reviewing Philip Hamburger, Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom)
- Stare Decisis as Authority and Aspiration, 96 Notre Dame Law Review 1971 (2021) (for Federal Courts Symposium)
- Retheorizing Precedent, 70 Duke Law Journal 1025 (2021) (for Administrative Law Symposium)
- Leverage, 62 Boston College Law Review 109 (2021)
- Statutory Interpretation, Administrative Deference, and the Law of Stare Decisis, 97 Texas Law Review 1125 (2019)
- Special Justifications, 33 Constitutional Commentary 471 (2018) (for symposium on Settled Versus Right: A Theory of Precedent)
- Precedent and Constitutional Structure, 112 Northwestern University Law Review 789 (2018)
- Precedent and Speech, 115 Michigan Law Review 439 (2017)
- Discretionary Dockets, 31 Constitutional Commentary 221 (2016) (with Jeff Pojanowski)
- Stare Decisis in the Second-Best World, 103 California Law Review 1139 (2015)
- Original Meaning and the Precedent Fallback, 68 Vanderbilt Law Review 105 (2015)
- The Scope of Precedent, 113 Michigan Law Review 179 (2014)
- Institutional Autonomy and Constitutional Structure, 112 Michigan Law Review 957 (2014)
- Settled Versus Right: Constitutional Method and the Path of Precedent, 91 Texas Law Review 1843 (2013) (for symposium on Constitutional Foundations) (republished as abridged in Precedent in the U.S. Supreme Court: Theory and Practice (Christopher J. Peters ed., 2014))
- The Rule of Law and the Perils of Precedent, 111 Michigan Law Review First Impressions 37 (2013)
- Precedent and Reliance, 62 Emory Law Journal 1459 (2013)
- Free Speech and Parity: A Theory of Public Employee Rights, 53 William & Mary Law Review 1985 (2012)
- 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)
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