Daniel Epps

Professor Daniel Epps teaches first-year criminal law, upper-level courses in criminal procedure, and a seminar on public law theory. His research analyzes the criminal justice system using the tools and insights of structural public law and institutional design; he also researches and writes about constitutional theory and federal courts. His scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, and the NYU Law Review, and his writing for popular audiences has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Vox, and The Atlantic.

Professor Epps is a nationally recognized expert on the Supreme Court. An experienced Supreme Court litigator, he most recently served as co-counsel for the defendant in Ocasio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1423 (2016), which addressed the scope of criminal conspiracy liability for public-sector extortion. His other notable prior work includes the successful petition for certiorari and merits briefing in Walden v. Fiore, 133 S. Ct. 1493 (2014); a brief for the Court-appointed amicus curiae in Millbrook v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 1441 (2013); and an amicus brief for criminal law and procedure scholars in United States v. Davila, 133 S. Ct. 2139 (2013). He also served as co-counsel on the brief of Prof. Stephen E. Sachs as amicus curiae in Atlantic Marine Construction Co. v. U.S. District Court, 134 S. Ct. 568 (2013) (with Jeffrey S. Bucholtz & Stephen E. Sachs), which The Green Bag Almanac & Reader included on its list of “Exemplary Legal Writing” for 2013.

Professor Epps received his A.B. summa cum laude with highest distinction in Philosophy from Duke University and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was Articles Co-Chair of the Harvard Law Review and won the John M. Olin Law & Economics prize. After law school, he clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States. He then spent several years as an appellate specialist at King & Spalding LLP in Washington, D.C. While in practice, he also served as a Lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he co-taught a course called “Supreme Court Decisionmaking.” Immediately prior to joining Washington University Law, he was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.