Richard H. Pildes

Courses

• Colloquium on Constitutional Theory

  This Colloquium is designed for students who want to be exposed to the best contemporary academic work in constitutional law and theory -- with that subject being broadly understood to include work in public law, including not only constitutional but administrative law as well as other areas. Every other week, one of the leading academics in the United States will present their current work; NYU faculty and students in the Colloquium will then ask questions and engage in a dialogue with the speaker. In the weeks without a speaker, students will discuss the papers to be presented and related work with the Colloquium leaders. Students will regularly be required to write reaction papers to the work being presented. This Colloquium is particularly oriented to students who might be contemplating academic careers at some point down the road and to those interested in academic work.

• Constitutional Democracies Colloquium

  This class will review constitutional structures of democracy in a variety of countries. We will have presentations by visitors in about half the classes, including judges from constitutional courts around the world. The focus will be constitutional oversight of democracy, judicial review of the structure of the political process, and the way modern constitutions are used to stabilize democratic regimes.

• Presidential Powers Seminar

  This seminar will explore major contemporary and historical controversies concerning the powers and constraints on the powers of the President. Some of the general issues studied will include the scope of unilateral executive powers; broad delegations by Congress to the President; executive privilege; the scope of congressional oversight; impeachment; the separation of powers; and the scope of judicial review of presidential actions. Readings and discussion will center on the historical development of legal doctrine on these issues and the increase in the visibility and intensity of these issues over the last several administrations. Materials will include judicial decisions as well as case studies of current and recent issues. We will examine these issues both as legal matters and from the perspective of the real-world functioning of the White House and Congress. Some of the larger themes we will explore include the growth of presidential powers over time and how presidential power should be understood in an era of highly polarized political parties. Class participation is expected. There will be no exam, but a requirement of a 20-25 paper on an approved topic related to the issues covered in the seminar.

• The Administrative and Regulatory State (For 1Ls Only)

  The central institutions of the regulatory state are legislatures and administrative agencies, not courts. The central sources of law are authoritative legal texts, like statutes, not common-law decisions. How do lawyers work with the distinct institutions and the legal sources of authority of the regulatory state? How do we think in theory about what justifies the rise of the regulatory state, what the pathologies of this state might be, and how we might improve the quality of regulation? Is cost-benefit analysis, for example, a pernicious technocratic tool that allows elites to smuggle their ideological preferences into public policy? Or is it one of the few tools to bring a degree of rationality and common sense to an out-of-control regulatory state that stumbles erratically from problem to problem with no coherent sense of purpose? Indeed, what does it mean for public policy to be "rational" at all?

• The Law of Democracy

  This course provides broad exposure to the way the law structures American democracy and the political process. We will cover issues such as the right to vote; the presidential nomination and election process; the Voting Rights Act; the role of political parties in American democracy; campaign finance and the role of money in politics; political polarization and its consequences; redistricting and partisan gerrymandering; and new systems of voting, such as ranked-choice voting. We will study the historical development of American institutions and of these specific issues; the doctrinal structure and development of current law; the policy consequences for American democracy of the relevant legal rules; and possible directions for reform. The course draws on the professor's experience litigating cases on these issues and working on campaigns. Students should come away with a deeper understanding of how American democracy has developed and currently functions; the role of legal doctrine and legislation in shaping our politics; and deeper perspective on many reform proposals currently being discussed.