EDWARD L. RUBIN
EDWARD L. RUBIN
Vanderbilt University Law School
131 21st Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203
Office: (615) 322-5620
Email: ed.rubin@vanderbilt.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
EDUCATION
Yale Law School: 1976 to 1979, J.D.
City College of New York: 1969. MA in Elementary and Secondary Education
Princeton University: 1965 to 1969. A. B. in History and Anthropology
EMPLOYMENT
July 2009 to Present: University Professor of Law and Political Science, Vanderbilt Univ. Law School
July, 2005 to July 2009: Dean and John Wade-Kent Syverud Professor of Law, Vanderbilt Univ. Law School
September, 1998 to June 2005: Professor of Law, (Theodore K. Warner, Jr. Professor of Law from 2003 to
2005), Univ. of Pennsylvania
July, 1987 to August 1998: Professor of Law, Univ. of California School of Law (Richard W. Jennings
Professor of Law from 1996 to 1998)
January, 1989 to June, 1992: Associate Dean, Univ. of California School of Law
Sept., 1982 to June, 1987: Acting Professor, Univ. of California School of Law
Sept., 1980 to June, 1982: Associate, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, New York, New York
(Entertainment Department)
July, 1979 to August, 1980: Law Clerk, Hon. Jon O. Newman, Associate Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit
Sept., 1970 to June, 1976: Curriculum Planner, New York City Board of Education
PUBLICATIONS
Books
The New Morality and the Modern State (working title) (Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2014)
Legal Education in the Digital Age (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2011
The Regulatory State (with Lisa Bressman and Kevin Stack), Aspen, 2d. ed. 2013
Federalism: Political Identity and Tragic Compromises (with Malcolm Feeley), University of Michigan Press,
2008 (paperback edition 2011)
Beyond Camelot: Rethinking Politics and Law for the Modern State, Princeton University Press, 2005
(paperback edition, 2007)
Minimizing Harm: A New Crime Policy for Modern American (editor), Westview Press, 1998, (paperback
edition 1999)
Judicial Policymaking and the Modern State: How the Courts Reformed America’s Prisons (with Malcolm
Feeley), Cambridge University Press, 1998 (paperback edition 1999)
Minimizing Harm as a Goal for Crime Policy in California (Editor), California Crime Policy Seminar, 1997
The Payment System: Cases, Materials and Issues (with Robert Cooter), West Publishing Co., 2d ed. 1994
Articles and Book Chapters
Empiricism’s Crucial Question and the Reformation of the Legal System, in Jean Braucher, John Kidwell &
William C. Whitord, eds., Revisiting the Contracts Scholarship of Stewart Macaulay: The Empirical
and the Lyrical, Hart Publishing, 2013
Bureaucratic Oppression: Its Causes and Cures, 90 W ASH . U. L. R EV . 291 (2012)
Hyperdepoliticization, 47 W AKE F OREST L. R EV . 631 (2012)
Obstructing Law’s Future with Conceptions from its Past, in Sam Muller et al., eds., The Law of the Future
and the Future of Law, Vol. II 415 (The Hague: Torket Opsahl 2012)
The Affordable Care Act, the Constitutional Meaning of Statutes, and the Emerging Doctrine of Positive
Constitutional Rights, 53 W M . & M ARY L. R EV . 1639 (2012)
Shocking News for Legislators and Law Schools: Statutes Are Law, Vereniging voor Wetgeving en
Wetgevingsbeleid, Sept. 11, 2011
Can the Obama Administration Renew American Regulatory Policy? 65 U. M IAMI L. R EV . 357
(2011)
The Real Formalists, The Real Realists, and What They Tell Us About Judicial Scholarship and
Legal Education, 109 M ICH . L. R EV . 863 (2011) (book review)
Curricular Stress, 60 J. L EGAL E DUC . 110 (2010)
Assisted Suicide, Morality and Law: Why Prohibiting Assisted Suicide Violates the Establishment Clause, 63
V AND . L. R EV . 763 (2010)
Seduction, Integration and Conceptual Frameworks: The Influence of Legal Scholarship on Judges, 29 U NIV .
Q UEENSLAND L. J. 101 (2010)
The Regulatizing Process and the Boundaries of New Public Governance, 2010 W IS . L. R EV . 535.
The Possibilities and Limitations of Privatization, 123 H ARV . L. R EV . 890 (2010)
Question Regarding D.C. v. Heller: As a Justice, Antonin Scalia is A) Great, B) Acceptable, C) Non-Judicial,
54 W AYNE L. R EV . 1105 (2009)
The Citizen Lawyer and the Administrative State: Redefining the Substance and Pedagogy of Legal Ethics, 50
W M . & M ARY L. R EV . 1335 (2009)
Judicial Review and the Right to Resist, 97 G EORGETOWN L.J. 61-118 (2008)
Should Law Schools Support Faculty Research?, 17 J OURNAL OF C ONTEMP . L EGAL I SSUES 139 - 169 (2008)
Federalism and Interpretation, 38 P UBLIUS 167-191 (2008) (with Malcolm Feeley)
What’s Wrong with Langdell’s Method, and What to Do About It, 60 V AND . L. R EV . 609-665 (2007)
The Internet, Consumer Protection and Practical Knowledge, in Jane Winn, ed. Consumer Protection in the
Age of the ‘Information Economy’ 35-58 (Ashgate, 2007)
Leadership and Literature, in Inside the Minds: Law School Leadership Strategies 209-224 (Aspatore, 2006)
The Myth of Non-Bureaucratic Accountability and the Anti-Administrative Impulse, in Michael Dowdle, ed.,
Public Accountability: Designs, Dilemmas and Experiences (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge
University Press, 2006)
Embracing Consent: An Administrative Era Approach to Consent Decrees, in Andrew Rachlin, ed., Consent
and Its Discontents: Policy Issues in Consent Decrees 52–82 (Princeton, N.J.: Policy Research
Institute for the Region, 2006)
Sex, Politics, and Morality, 47 W M . & M ARY L. R EV . 1- 48 (2005)
Rational Choice and Rat Choice, Some Thoughts on the Relationship Among Rationality, Markets, and
Human Beings, 80 C HI -K ENT L. R EV . 1091 (2005)
The Conceptual Explanation for Legislative Failure, 30 L AW & S OC . I NQUIRY 583–606 (2005)
The Myth of Accountability and the Anti-administration Impulse, 103 M ICH . L. R EV . 2073-2136 (2005) (ABA
Administrative Law Section prize for best article of 2005)
Images of Organizations and the Consequences of Regulation, 6 T HEORETICAL I NQUIRIES IN L AW 347-390
(2005)
Charity Begins in Washington, D.C. 52 B UFFALO L. R EV . 793 (2004)
Just Say No to Retribution, 7 B UFFALO C RIMINAL L. R EV . 17 (2004)
Why Law Schools Do Not Teach Contracts and What Socioeconomics Can Do About It, 41 S AN D IEGO L.
R EV . 55 (2004)
It’s Time to Make the Administrative Procedure Act Administrative, 88 C ORNELL L. R EV . 95 (2003)
Judicial Policy Making and Litigation Against the Government, 5 U. P ENN . J. C ONSTITUTIONAL L. 617 (2003)
(with Malcolm Freeley)
Jon Newman’s Theory of Disparagement and the First Amendment in the Administrative State, 46 N EW
Y ORK L. S CH . L. R EV . 249 (2003)
Trial by Combat, Trial by Argument, 56 U. A RK . L. R EV . 261 (2003)
Rethinking Human Rights, 9 Int. Legal Theory 5 (2003)
Dynamic Statutory Interpretation in the Administrative State, Issues in Legal Scholarship, bepress.com (2002)
Independence as a Governance Mechanism, in Judicial Independence at the Crossroads, Stephen Burbank &
Barry Friedman, eds. (Sage, 2002)
Public Choice, Phenomenology, and the Meaning of the Modern State: Keep the Bathwater, but Throw Out
That Baby, 87 C ORNELL L AW R EV . 309 (2002)
Passing Through the Door: Social Movement Literature and Legal Scholarship, 150 U. P ENN . L. R EV . 1 (2001)
The Inevitability of Rehabilitation, 19 L AW & I NEQUALITY 343 (2001)
Puppy Federalism and the Blessings of America, 574 A NNALS 37 (2001)
Getting Past Democracy, 149 U. P ENN . L. R EV . 711 (2001)
Legal Scholarship, in The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Pergamon, 2001)
Responsive Law and the Judicial Process, in Kenneth Winston & Robert Post, Legality in Institutions and
Society: Essays in Honor of Philip Selznick (University of California Press, 2001) (with Malcolm
Feeley)
Scholars, Judges and Phenomenology, 32 R UTGERS -C AMDEN L. R EV . 241 (2000)
Computer Language as Networks and Power Structires: Governing the Development of XML, 53 SMU. L.
R EV . 1447 (2000)
Types of Contracts, Interventions of Law, 45 W AYNE L. R EV . 1903 (2000)
If the States Had Been Sovereign, 16 C ONSTITUTIONAL C OMMENTARY 555 (1999)
Jews, Truth and Critical Race Theory, 93 N.W.U. L. R EV . 525 (1999)
Putting Rational Actors in their Place: Economics, Behavioral Economics, and Phenomenology, 51 V AND . L.
R EV . 1705 (1998)
Politics, Doctrinal Coherence, and the Art of Treatise Writing, 21 S EATTLE L. R EV . 837 (1998),
Communing with Disaster: What We Can Learn from the Jusen and the Savings and Loan Crisis, 29 L AW &
P OLICY IN I NT ’ L B USINESS 79 (1998)
Punitive Damages: Reconceptualizing the Runcible Remedies of Common Law, 1998 W ISC . L. R EV . 131
Administrative Law and the Complexity of Culture, in Legislative Drafting for Market Reform: Some Lessons
from China (Ann Seidman, Robert Seidman & Janice Payne, eds., Macmillan, 1997)
The Fundamentality and Irrelevance of Federalism, 13 G A . S T . L. R EV . 1009 (1997)
Rational States?, 83 V A . L. R EV . 1433 (1997)
Discretion and its Discontents 72 C HI -K ENT L. R EV . 1299 (1997)
The Code, The Consumer, and the Institutional Structure of the Common Law, 75 W ASH . U. L. Q. 15 (1997)
Law And and the Methodology of Law, 1997 W ISC . L. R EV . 521 (1997) (reprinted in The History of Legal
Education in the United States, Steve Sheppard, ed., Salem, 1999)
Legal Reasoning, Legal Process and the Judiciary as an Institution, 84 C ALIF . L. R EV . 265 (1997)
Creating Legal Doctrine, 69 S OUTHERN C AL . L. R EV . 1989 (1997) (with Malcolm Feeley)
Public Choice and Legal Scholarship, 46 J. L EGAL E DUC . 490 (1996) (Review)
The New Legal Process, The Synthesis of Disclosure and the Microanalysis of Law, 109 H ARV . L. R EV . 1393
(1996)
The Phenomenology of Contract: Complete Contracting in the Entertainment Industry, 152 J. I NST . &
T HEORETICAL E CON . 123 (1996)
Legal Scholarship, in Blackwell’s Companion to the Philosophy of Law (D. Patterson ed. 1996)
Institutional Analysis and the New Legal Process, 1995 W ISC . L. R EV . 463 (1995)
The Non-Judicial Life of Contract: Beyond the Shadow of the Law 90 N W . U. L. R EV . 107 (1995)
Learning from Lord Mansfield: Toward a Transferability Law for Modern Commercial Practice, 31 I DAHO L.
R EV . 775 (1995)
Federalism: Some Notes on a National Neurosis, 41 UCLA L. R EV . 903 (1994) (with Malcolm Feeley)
(reprinted in Modern Constitutional Theory, John Garvey & T. Alexander Aleinikoff, eds., 1999)
Public Choice in Practice and Theory, 81 C ALIF . L. R EV . 1657 (1994)
Interpreting Statutes: A Comparative Study, 41 A M . J. C OMP . L. 128 (1993)
Thinking Like a Lawyer, Acting Like a Lobbyist: Some Notes on the Process of Revising UCC Articles 3 and
4, 26 L OYOLA L.A. L. R EV . 743 (1993)
Prison Litigation and Bureaucratic Development, 17 L AW & S OCIAL I NQUIRY 125 (1992)
On Beyond Truth: A Theory For Evaluating Legal Scholarship, 80 C ALIF . L. R EV . 889 (1992) (reprinted in
Readings in Race and Law: A Guide to Critical Race Theory, Alex Johnson, ed., West, forthcoming)
The Lifeline Banking Controversy: Putting Deregulation to Work for the Low Income Consumer, 67 I NDIANA
L. J. 213 (1992)
Legislative Methodology: Some Lessons from the Truth-in Lending Act, 80 G EORGETOWN
L. R EV . 233 (1992) (reprinted in Making Development Work, Ann Seidman, Robert Seidman & Thomas
Walde, eds., Kluwer, 1999)
What Does Prescriptive Legal Scholarship Say and Who Is Listening To It: A Response to Dan-Cohen, 63
C OLO . L. R EV . 731 (1992)
Modern Statutes, Loose Canons, and the Limits of Practical Reason: A Response to Farber and Ross, 45
V AND . L. R EV . 579 (1992)
The Evaluation of Prescriptive Scholarship, 10 T EL A VIV S TUDIES IN L AW 101 (1991)
The Concept of Law and the New Public Law Scholarship, 89 M ICH . L. R EV . 792 (1991)
Efficiency, Equity and the Proposed Revision of Articles 3 and 4, 42 A LA . L. R EV . 551 (1991)
Modern Statutes, Loose Canons, and the Limits of Practical Reason: A Response to Farber and Ross, 45
V AND . L. R EV . 579 (1992)
The Evaluation of Prescriptive Scholarship, 10 T EL A VIV S TUDIES IN L AW 101 (1991)
Beyond Public Choice: Comprehensive Rationality in the Reading and Writing of Statutes, 66 N.Y. U. L. R EV .
1 (1991)
The Concept of Law and the New Public Law Scholarship, 89 M ICH . L. R EV . 792 (1991) Efficiency, Equity
and the Proposed Revision of Articles 3 and 4, 42 A LA . L. R EV . 551 (1991)
Review, J. Mitchell, Electronic Banking and the Consumer - - The European Dimension, 38 A M . J. C OMP . L.
969 (1991)
Politics, Bureaucracies and Financial Markets: Bank Entry into Commercial Paper Underwriting in the United
States and Japan, 193 U. P A . L. R EV . 369 (1990) (with Litt, Macey and Miller)
Television and the Experience of Citizenship, 68 T EX . L. R EV . 1155 (1990)
Automated Teller Machines and the Marine Midland Decision, 44 B US , L AW . 1082 (1989)
Judicial Policy Making and Litigation Against the Government, 5 U. P ENN . J. C ONSTITUTIONAL L. 617 (2003)
(with Malcolm Freeley)
The Revision of Articles 3 and 4 of the Codes, 44 B US . L AW . 1538 (1989) (part of annual commercial paper
survey)
Law and Legislation in the Administrative State, 89 C OLUM . L. R EV . 369 (1989).
Deregulation, Reregulation and the Myth of the Market, 45 W ASH . & L EE L. R EV . 1249 (1989)
Uniformity, Regulation, and the Federalization of State Law: Some Lessons from the Payment System, 49
O HIO S T . L. J. 1251 (1989)
Legal Scholarship as Practice and Discourse, 86 M ICH . L. R EV . 1835 (1988)
Orders and Incentives as Regulatory Methods: The Expedited Funds Availability Act of 1987, 35 U.C.L.A. L.
R EV . 1115 (1988) (with Robert Cooter)
Policies and Issues in the Proposed Revision of Articles 3 and 4 of the UCC, 43 B US .
L AW 621 (1988)
A Theory of Loss Allocation for Consumer Payments, 66 T EX . L. R EV . 61 (1987) (with Robert Cooter)
Nazis, Skokie, and the First Amendment as Virtue, 74 C ALIF . L. R EV . 233 (1986)
Procedural Due Process and the Administrative State, 72 C ALIF . L. R EV . (1984) (reprinted in Administrative
Law Anthology, Thomas Sargentich, ed., Anderson, 1994)
The Enforcement of Personal Service Contracts, 3 E NT . & S PORTS L AWYER , No. 1 at 3 (1984)
The Growing Edge of the Due Process Clause: Procedural Due Process and the Right
to Treatment, 17 H ARV . C. R. -C.L.L. R EV . 61 (1982)
Toward a General Theory of Waiver, 28 U.C.L.A. L. R EV . 478 (1981)
The Descendibility of the Right of Publicity: Is there Commercial Life After Death?, 89 Y ALE L. J. 1125
(1980) (with Peter L. Felcher)
Privacy, Publicity, and the Portrayal of Real People by the Media, 88 Y ALE L. J. 1588(1979)(With P. Felcher)
POSITIONS
University Secretary, University of Pennsylvania Senate, 2000-2002
Member at Large, University Council, University of Pennsylvania, 2000-2004
Chair, University of California, Berkeley Privilege and Tenure Committee, 1995 to 1998
Chair, University of California, University-wide Privilege and Tenure Committee, 1996 to 1998
Director, Crime Policy Project, California Policy Seminar University of California, 1994 to1998
Co-Director, Sho Sato Japanese-American Legal Studies Program, 1986 to 1998
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
Association of American Law Schools, Committee on Nominations, 2010 and 1998
Association of American Law Schools, Section on Administrative Law, Chair, 2008-2009
Association of American Law Schools, Committee on Curriculum, Chair, 2006-2009
Association of American Law Schools, Section on Socio-Economics, Chair, 2003-2004
Association of American Law Schools, Section on Scholarship, Chair, 2002-2003
Association of American Law Schools, Committee on Curriculum and Research, 1989 to 1991 and 1996 to
1999
Association of American Law Schools, Committee on Professional Development, 1992 to 1994
American Bar Association, Chair of the Subcommittee for Articles 3 and 4 of the
Ad Hoc Committee on Payment Systems, 1986 to 1990
Reporter for the Financial Institutions Committee of the Business Law Section of the State Bar of California
on Banking Law Revision, 1987 to 1989
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Consultant, Asia Foundation Project on the Administrative Licensing Law for the People’s Republic of China,
1998 to Present
Consultant, Legal Reform Project, Russian Privatization Center, Harvard Institute for International
Development, 1994 to 1995
Consultant, U.N. Development Programme, to the People’s Republic of China for Administrative Law, 1992
