Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor in Constitutional Law
Education
- J.D., University of Chicago (1982)
- M.S., London School of Economics and Political Science (1979)
- B.A., Yale University (1978)
Professor
Gerhardt is one of the leading constitutional scholars in the nation. His specialties include civil rights, civil liberties, the legislative process, and separation of powers. He has served as special counsel, public commentator, and/or expert witness on all the major constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress over the past 25 years.
He has written dozens of law review articles and five books. The
Financial Times named his book, The Forgotten Presidents: Their Untold
Constitutional Legacy (Oxford University Press, 2013), as one of its Best
Non-Fiction Books of 2013. Professor Gerhardt is co-editor (with Eric Lane and
the late Abner Mikva) of the Fourth Edition of the casebook, The Legislative
Process, published by Aspen Law and Business. The New York Times described his
book on the federal appointments process as the principal book the White House
and senators from both parties used as a guide throughout the Senate's
hearings on President George W. Bush's nominations of John Roberts and Samuel
Alito, Jr., to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor
Gerhardt's extensive public service has included advising congressional leaders
and White House officials. He served as
one of the eight members of President-Elect Bill Clinton's Justice Department
transition team and drafted the administration's judicial selection policy. In 1997-98, he was the only expert invited to speak
behind closed doors to the entire House of Representatives and was the only
joint witness to testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding
President Clinton's impeachment. He has testified over a dozen times
before major committees in the House and Senate.
Professor
Gerhardt is the only legal scholar to participate in Supreme Court confirmation
hearings for six of the nine justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court. He served as Special Counsel to the Clinton White House on Justice Stephen
Breyer's confirmation; advised several senators on President Bush's nomination
of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States in 2005; testified as an
expert witness in Justice Samuel Alito's confirmation hearings in 2006; and served
as Special Counsel to Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the Senate Judiciary
Committee for the nominations of Sonia Sotomayor (2009) and Elena Kagan (2010) to the the Supreme Court and as Special Counsel to the Ranking Member
and the Senate Judiciary Committee for the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the
Supreme Court (2017).
Professor
Gerhardt regularly participates in academic workshops and colloquium around the
country and has published op eds for major newspapers and media outlets throughout the country,
including the New York Times, Slate, Washington Post, Scotusblog, and LA Times. He has been
regularly interviewed as an expert on constitutional law by all major media outlets, including National Public Radio. In 1998-99, he was CNN's principal expert on impeachment
throughout President Clinton's impeachment hearings.
His
honors include the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Yale
Alumni in 2008, The St. George Tucker Lecturer at the William
& Mary Law School in 2003, and once as the Walter Murphy Distinguished Lecturer and twice as the Alpheus Mason Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University. Professor Gerhardt has
twice received UNC Law School's Van Hecke-Wettach Award, given every two years
in recognition of an outstanding book written by a faculty member. In 2004, he
was a visiting fellow in the James Madison Program in American Institutions and
Ideals at Princeton University. The Institute for the Arts and Humanities at
UNC-Chapel Hill selected Professor Gerhardt as a fellow in both its leadership and
scholarship programs. In 2015, Professor Gerhardt became the first independent scholar to be chosen by the American Law Division of the Congressional
Research Service to assist with updating and revising the official United States
Constitution Annotated
Professor Gerhardt received a B.A. from Yale University,
M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and J.D. from the University of
Chicago. After graduation from law school and before entering academia, he
clerked for judges on the federal district and appellate courts; served as Deputy Media Director of Albert Gore,
Jr's first Senate campaign; and practiced law for two firms specializing in
complex civil and criminal litigation.
During
the academic year 2017-18, Professor Gerhardt will teach professional
responsibility, constitutional law, and judicial opinion writing; and he will
continue to serve as visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law
School and Scholar in Residence and Director of Content at the National
Constitution Center. He is an invited member of the American Law Institute and
has served on several major committees of the North Carolina Bar Association; and he has been a member of the North Carolina
Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights since 2010. He has
served on several major university committees, including as a member and later
Chair of the university's Promotion, Appointment, and Tenure Committee and as a
member and later Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee of the UNC faculty. He
is married to Deborah Gerhardt, who teaches intellectual property, trademark,
copyright, and art law at the law school. They have three sons (Ben, Daniel,
and Noah) and a dog (Ari).
Selected Publications
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Barack Obama, in THE PRESIDENTS AND THE CONSTITUTION (Ken Gormley, ed.) (2016) [KF5053 .P75 2016]
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The Politics of Early Justice, Federal Judicial Selection, 1789-1861 (with M. Stein) 100 IOWA L. REV. 551 (2015). [Westlaw, Lexis/Nexis, SSRN, Hein]
- THE FORGOTTEN PRESIDENTS: THEIR UNTOLD CONSTITUTIONAL LEGACY (Oxford University Press 2013). [KF5051 .G47 2013]
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Why Gridlock Matters, 88 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 2107 (2013). [Westlaw, Lexis/Nexis, SSRN]
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Elections Matter, 34 HARV. J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 827 (2011). [Westlaw, Lexis/Nexis, SSRN, Hein]
- THE POWER OF PRECEDENT (Oxford University Press) (Revised paperback ed. 2011, 1st ed. 2008). [KF429 .G47 2008]
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Is the Filibuster Constitutional? (with J. Chafetz), 158 U. PA. L. REV. PENNumbra 245 (2010). [Westlaw, Lexis/Nexis, SSRN, Hein, BEPress, Document Link]
- CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY: ARGUMENTS AND PERSPECTIVES (with T. Rowe, Jr. and S. Griffin) (3rd ed., Lexis Law Publishing, 2007). [KF4550 .G467 2007 ]
- THE FEDERAL APPOINTMENTS PROCESS: A CONSTITUTIONAL AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS (1st ed., Duke University Press, 2000). [JK731 .G47 2000]
- THE FEDERAL IMPEACHMENT PROCESS: A CONSTITUTIONAL AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS (2d ed., University of Chicago Press, 2000). [KF4958 .G47 2000 ]