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Theodore Ruger
Professor of Law

Theodore Ruger
Professor of Law

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

Expertise

  • Constitutional Law
  • Food and Drug Regulation
  • Health Law

Bio

Theodore Ruger joined Penn Law’s faculty in July 2004 after three years at Washington University in St. Louis. [More]
Theodore Ruger joined Penn Law’s faculty in July 2004 after three years at Washington University in St. Louis. In his brief career, Ruger’s scholarship has endeavored to bring fresh insight to the study of some of the oldest questions of American constitutional 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 sources such as 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 addresses the manner in which American courts – and particularly the United States Supreme Court – have shaped the field of health law in recent decades. [Hide]

Representative Professional Positions

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

Yale Law School – Visiting Professor (Fall 2007)

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

Williams & Connolly LLP – Associate (1998-2000)

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

Representative Publications

Chief Justice Rehnquist's Appointments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court: An Empirical Perspective, 100 NW. U. L. REV. (forthcoming 2007).

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

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).

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

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).
[View Document]

‘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

 
Theodore Ruger

Curriculum Vitae

Education

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

Courses Taught

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

Research Areas

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

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