Pauline Kim
Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law
Professor Pauline Kim is a nationally recognized expert on the law of the workplace and has written widely on issues such as job security, employee privacy, employment discrimination, and judicial decision-making. Her current research focuses on the use of big data and artificial intelligence in the workplace and the implications of these technologies for employee privacy and anti-discrimination law. Professor Kim is the co-director of Washington University’s Center for Empirical Research in the Law. With Marion Crain, Michael Selmi, and Brishen Rogers, she co-authors one of the leading textbooks on employment law, Work Law: Cases and Materials, now in its 4th edition. She holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Sociology and is a faculty affiliate at the Center for Race, Ethnicity and Equity, and the Cordell Institute. She is also on the program committee of the Privacy Law Scholars’ Conference, and a member of the Labor Law Group and the American Law Institute. Before joining the faculty, she clerked for The Honorable Cecil F. Poole on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Following her clerkship, she was the Félix Velarde-Muñoz Fellow, and later a staff attorney, at the Employment Law Center/Legal Aid Society of San Francisco (now Legal Aid at Work). In 2007-08, she was the inaugural John S. Lehmann Research Professor at Washington University Law School, and from 2008-2010, she served as the law school’s Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development.
- Education
- J.D., Harvard Law School, 1988
- Henry Fellow, New College, Oxford University, 1984-85
- AB, Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, 1984
- Courses
- Civil Procedure
- Employment Discrimination
- Employment Law
- Areas of Expertise
- Employment Law
- Employee Privacy
- Employment Discrimination
- Fairness in Algorithmic Decision-making
- Publications
- “The Social Consequences of Predictive AI,” in The Cambridge Handbook on Artificial Intelligence & the Law, eds. Kristin Johnson and Carla Reyes, editors (forthcoming 2021)
- “Artificial Intelligence and the Challenges of Workplace Discrimination and Privacy,” ABA Journal of Labor and Employment Law (forthcoming 2020) (with Matthew T. Bodie)
- “Mapping the Iceberg: The Impact of Data Sources on the Study of District Courts,” 17 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 466 (2020) (with Christina L. Boyd and Margo Schlanger)
- “Manipulating Opportunity,” 106 Virginia Law Review 867 (2020)
- “Data Mining and the Challenges of Protecting Employee Privacy under U.S. Law,” 40 Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 405 (2019)
- “Big Data and Artificial Intelligence: New Challenges for Workplace Equality,” 57 University of Louisville Law Review 313 (2019) (Carl A. Warns, Jr. Keynote Speech).
- “Discrimination in Online Employment Recruiting,” 63 St. Louis University Law Journal 93 (2018) (with Sharion Scott), Symposium on Law, Technology and the Organization of Work, reprinted in Sharing the Gains of the U.S. Global Economy: Proceedings of the New York University 70th Annual Conference on Labor (Charlotte Garden, ed.; Samual Estreicher, series ed.) (Carolina Academic Press) (2021).
- “Auditing Algorithms for Discrimination,” 166 University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online 189 (2017)
- “Data-Driven Discrimination at Work,” 58 William & Mary Law Review 857 (2017)
- “People Analytics and the Regulation of Information under the Fair Credit Reporting Act,” 61 St. Louis University Law Journal 17 (2016) (with Erika Hanson), Symposium on the Law and Business of People Analytics
- “Market Norms and Constitutional Values in the Government Workplace,” 94 North Carolina Law Review 601 (2016)
- “Addressing Systemic Discrimination: Public Enforcement and the Role of the EEOC,” 95 Boston University Law Review 1133 (2015), Symposium on The Civil Rights Act of 1964 at 50: Past, Present, and Future
- Work Law: Cases and Materials (3d ed.), with Marion Crain & Michael Selmi, Matthew Bender & Co./LexisNexis Group (2015)
- “The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Structural Reform of the American Workplace,” 91 Washington University Law Review 1519 (2014) (with Margo Schlanger)
- “A Holistic Approach to Teaching Work Law,” 58 St. Louis University Law Journal 7 (2013) (with Marion Crain), Symposium on Teaching Employment and Labor Law
- “A Dynamic Model of Doctrinal Choice,” 4 Journal of Legal Analysis 301 (2012) (with Scott Baker)
- “Electronic Privacy and Employee Speech,” 87 Chicago-Kent Law Review 901 (2012) (The Kenneth M. Piper Lecture)
- “Beyond Principal-Agent Theories: Law and the Judicial Hierarchy,” 105 Northwestern University Law Review 535 (2011)
- “Regulating the Use of Genetic Information: Perspectives from the U.S. Experience,” 31 Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 693 (2010)
- “Reply: Exploring Panel Effects,” 158 University of Pennsylvania Law Review PENNumbra 269 (2010)
- “Deliberation and Strategy on the United States Court of Appeals,” 157 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1319 (2009)
- “How Should We Study District Judge Decision-Making,” 29 Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 83 (2009) (with Margo Schlanger, Christina Boyd and Andrew D. Martin), Symposium on Empirical Research on Decision-Making in the Federal Courts
- Labor Law Group-U. C. Hastings Symposium on the Proposed Restatement of Employment Law, “Commentary on Chapter 4 of the Proposed Restatement of Employment Law: The Tort of Wrongful Discharge in Violation of Public Policy” (Section II) 13 Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal 161 (2009) (co-author Catherine Fisk)
- “Lower Court Discretion,” 82 New York University Law Review 383 (2007)
- “Collective and Individual Approaches to Protecting Employee Privacy: The Experience with Workplace Drug Testing,” 66 Louisiana Law Review 1009 (2006), Symposium on Examining Privacy in the Workplace
- “The Supreme Court Forecasting Project: Legal and Political Science Approaches to Predicting Supreme Court Decision-Making,” 104 Columbia Law Review 1150-1209 (2004) (with Theodore W. Ruger, Andrew D. Martin and Kevin M. Quinn)
- “Competing Approaches to Predicting Supreme Court Decision Making,” 2 Perspectives on Politics 761 (2004) (with Andrew D. Martin, Kevin M. Quinn and Theodore W. Ruger)
- WERL, “On Tournaments for Appointing Great Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court,” 78 Southern California Law Review 157 (2004)
- “The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993: Ten Years of Experience,” 15 Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 1 (2004)
- “The Colorblind Lottery,” 72 Fordham Law Review 9 (2003)
- “Genetic Discrimination, Genetic Privacy: Rethinking Employee Protection for a Brave New Workplace,” 96 Northwestern University Law Review 1497 (2002)
- “Norms, Learning and Law: Exploring the Influences on Workers’ Legal Knowledge,” 1999 University of Illinois Law Review 447 (1999)
- “An Empirical Challenge to Employment at Will,” 23 New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations 91 (1998)
- “Cynicism, Reconsidered,” 76 Washington University Law Quarterly 193 (1998)
- “Bargaining with Imperfect Information: A Study of Worker Perceptions of Legal Protection in an At-Will World,” 83 Cornell Law Review 105 (1997)
- “Privacy Rights, Public Policy and the Employment Relationship,” 57 Ohio State Law Journal 671 (1996)
- “Common Law Privacy: A Limit on an Employer’s Power to Test for Drugs,” 12 George Mason University Law Review 651 (1990) (with Edward M. Chen and John M. True)
- Activity and Affiliations
- American Law Institute
- Labor Law Group
- Society for Empirical Legal Studies
- Department of Sociology (by courtesy)
- Faculty affiliate, Center for Race, Ethnicity and Equity
- Resident Fellow, The Cordell Institute
- Program Committee, Privacy Law Scholars’ Conference
- Honors and Awards
- David M. Becker Professor the Year, 2019
- International Association of Privacy Professionals, Best Paper award for Data-Driven Discrimination at Work, 2016
- David M. Becker Professor of the Year, 2016
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