Lee Epstein

Lee Epstein is the Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research and teaching interests center on law and legal institutions, especially the behavior of judges.

Professor Epstein is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In addition to her position at WashU, she holds Distinguished Visiting Professorships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the University of Southern California, where she previously was the University Professor of Law & Political Science and the Hilliard Distinguished Professor of Law. She also is Principal Investigator of the U.S. Supreme Court Database.

A recipient of 12 grants from the National Science Foundation, Epstein has authored or co-authored more than 100 articles and essays and 18 books. She is currently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Judicial Behaviour (with Gunnar Grendstad, Urska Sadl, & Keren Weinshall). Professor Epstein’s empirical research is frequently cited in the New York Times, among other news media.

Awards include the Pritchett Award for the Best Book on Law and Courts and the Lasting Contribution Award for research “that has made a lasting impression on the field of law and courts” for The Choices Justice Make (with Jack Knight) and for “Untangling the Causal Effect of Sex on Judging” (with Christina Boyd and Andrew D. Martin); the Teaching and Mentoring Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association for the Constitutional Law for a Changing America series; and the Lifetime Achievement Award, also from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association.

Professor Epstein teaches courses on constitutional law, judicial behavior, free speech, and the U.S. Supreme Court. She won Northwestern University School of Law’s Outstanding First-Year Course Professor Award. At Washington University she was named Professor of the Year by the Undergraduate Political Science Association and received a Faculty of the Year Award from the Student Union. She also received Washington University’s Alumni Board of Governors Distinguished Faculty Award and the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award.