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Theodore Ruger
Professor of Law

Theodore Ruger
Professor of Law

Tel: 215.573.6018
Email: truger@law.upenn.edu

Expertise

  • Health Law
  • Legislation
  • Constitutional Law
  • Food and Drug Regulation

Bio

Theodore Ruger brings fresh insight to the study of some of the oldest questions of American law – namely the theoretical justifications for, and empirical contours of, the application of judicial authority.

In exploring these issues, Ruger supplements traditional legal analysis with the methods of other disciplines, including history and political science. [More]

Theodore Ruger brings fresh insight to the study of some of the oldest questions of American law – namely the theoretical justifications for, and empirical contours of, the application of judicial authority.

In exploring these issues, Ruger supplements traditional legal analysis with the methods of other disciplines, including history and political science. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, the Northwestern Law Review, and as the centerpiece of a symposium in Perspectives on Politics, a leading peer-reviewed political science journal.

In addition to his interests in constitutional law and legislation, Ruger also teaches and writes in the area of health law and pharmaceutical regulation. His current research in that field draws on his broader work on judicial power and constitutionalism, and addresses the manner in which American legal institutions – including the U.S, Supreme Court – have shaped the field of health law over the past two centuries.

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Representative Professional Positions

Penn Law – Professor of Law (2006- ); Assistant Professor (2004-06)

Visiting Professor - Yale, Harvard

Law Clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer, U.S. Supreme Court (1997-98)

Williams & Connolly LLP – Associate (1998-2000)

Washington University School of Law – Associate Professor (2001-04)

Law Clerk to the Hon. Michael Boudin, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (1996-97)

Representative Publications

Plural Constitutionalism and the Pathologies of American Healthcare, 120 YALE L. J. ONLINE 347 (2011).
[View Document]

The Story of FDA v. Brown & Williamson and the Norm of Agency Continuity, in STATUTORY INTERPRETATION STORIES 334 (Eskridge, Frickey & Garrett, eds. 2011).
[View Document]

A New Deal in a World of Old Ones, 42 ARIZ. ST. L.J. 1297 (2010).
[View Document]

Can A Patient-Centered Ethos Be Other-Regarding? Ought It Be?, 45 WAKE FOREST L. REV. 1513 (2010).
[View Document]

Health Law's Coherence Anxiety, 96 GEO. L.J. 625 (2008).
[View Document]

Chief Justice Rehnquist's Appointments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court: An Empirical Perspective, 101 NW. U. L. REV. 239 (2007).
[View Document]

The Chief Justice's Special Authority and the Norms of Judicial Power, 154 U. PA. L. REV. 1551 (2006).
[View Document]

Gonzales v. Oregon and the Supreme Court’s (Re)Turn to Constitutional Theory, 34 J. L. MED. & ETHICS 817 (2006).

Preempting the People: The Judicial Role in Regulatory Concurrency and Its Implications for Popular Lawmaking, 81 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 1029 (2006).
[View Document]

Justice Harry Blackmun and the Phenomenon of Judicial Preference Change, 70 MO. L. REV. 1209 (2005).
[View Document]

Establishment Clause Issues, subchapter in THE LOBBYING MANUAL (William V. Luneberg ed., 3d ed. 2005).

The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, in MAJOR ACTS OF CONGRESS (2004).

New Federalism, 16 WASH U. J.L. & POL'Y. 89 (2004).
[View Document]

Competing Approaches to Predicting Supreme Court Decisionmaking, 2 PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICS 761 (2004).

The Supreme Court Forecasting Project: Legal and Political Science Approaches to Supreme Court Decision-Making, 104 COLUM. L. REV. 1150 (2004) (with P. Kim, A. Martin, and K. Quinn).
[View Document]

The Supreme Court Federalizes Managed Care Liability, 32 J. L. MED. & ETHICS 528 (2004).
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‘A Question Which Convulses a Nation’: The Early Republic’s Greatest Debate About the Judicial Review Power, 117 HARV. L. REV. 827 (2004).
[View Document]

The Judicial Appointment Power of the Chief Justice, 7 U. PA. J. CONST. L. 341 (2004).
[View Document]

Note, FDA Reform and the European Medicines Evaluation Agency, 108 HARV. L. REV. 2009 (1995).

For additional publications, please consult
Current & Recent Research

Current Working Papers

The Ghosts of Health Law Past (and a Glimpse of Its Future). (forthcoming 2011)

Representative Professional Activities

Reviewer: Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law & Ethics

 
Theodore Ruger

Curriculum Vitae

Related Links

Education

  • J.D. - Harvard - '95
  • A.B. - Williams College - '90

Courses Taught

  • Legislation
  • Health Law and Regulation
  • Constitutional Law
  • Food and Drug Law
  • Doctors, Death Panels and Democracy

Research Areas

  • Constitutional Law, History, and Theory
  • Judicial Independence and Organization
  • Legislation and Statutory Interpretation
  • Health Law and Regulation
  • Food and Drug Law

AREAS OF EXPERTISE FOR MEDIA

  • Constitutional Law
  • Food & Drug Regulation
  • Health Care Regulation
  • Health Law
  • Judicial Behavior

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