Professor David Stras joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School in 2004. He teaches and writes in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, law and politics, and law and economics. His current research focuses on the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court of the United States. Using a variety of methodological tools, including empirical and historical analyses, Professor Stras' research has examined a variety of issues relating to the Supreme Court.
Professor Stras is a frequent television and radio commentator on issues relating to the federal judiciary, particularly with respect to the Supreme Court of the United States. He is also a faculty member of the University of Minnesota Political Science Department, and is the co-editor of an SSRN journal on law and politics. Professor Stras also recently became a co-director of the Institute for Law and Politics at the University of Minnesota. During the Fall 2008 semester, Professor Stras was a visiting professor of law at Washington University.
Professor Stras is the faculty advisor to the Minnesota Law Review, and a frequent and regular contributor to SCOTUSblog and Empirical Legal Studies blog. He also actively advises students in the clerkship application process. Professor Stras was honored to be named Stanley V. Kinyon Tenure-Track Teacher of the Year for the 2006-2007 academic year.
Professor Stras received his B.A. degree, with highest distinction, and his M.B.A. from the University of Kansas. He received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review. Following law school, Professor Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Why the Supreme Court Issues Plurality Opinions (article in progress; manuscript available upon request) (with Jim Spriggs)
Marksism (article in progress) (with Amanda Frost)
The Business of the Supreme Court: Reflections a Century Later (book in progress) (with Timothy R. Johnson & Jim Spriggs)
Deference, Retroactivity, and the Great Writ (article in progress)
The Precedential Value of Plurality Opinions (article in progress) (with Jim Spriggs)
Books
Federal Courts: Cases and Materials on Judicial Federalism and the Lawyering Process (LexisNexis, 2d ed., 2009) (with Arthur D. Hellman & Lauren K. Robel)
Judicial Code Supplement (LexisNexis, 2009) (with Arthur D. Hellman & Lauren K. Robel)
Journal Articles
The Supreme Court's Declining Plenary Docket: A Membership-Based Explanation, 27 Constitutional Commentary (forthcoming 2010)
Navigating the New Politics of Judicial Appointments, 102 Northwestern University Law Review 1869 (2008) (reviewing Christopher L. Eisgruber, The Next Justice: Repairing the Supreme Court Appointments Process (Princeton University Press, 2007)) (review essay) (with Ryan W. Scott)
Understanding the New Politics of Judicial Appointments, 86 Texas Law Review 1033 (2008) (reviewing Benjamin Wittes, Confirmation Wars: Preserving Independent Courts in Angry Times (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006) and Jan Crawford Greenburg, Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United
States Supreme Court (Penguin Press, 2007)) (review essay)
An Empirical Analysis of Life Tenure: A Response to Professors Calabresi & Lindgren, 30 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 791 (2007) (with Ryan W. Scott)
The Supreme Court's Gatekeepers: The Role of Law Clerks in the Certiorari Process, 85 Texas Law Review 947 (2007) (reviewing Todd C. Peppers, Courtiers of the Marble Palace: The Rise and Influence of the Supreme Court Law Clerk (Stanford University Press, 2006) and Artemus Ward & David L. Weiden, Sorcerers' Apprentices: 100 Years of Law Clerks at the United States Supreme Court (New York University Press, 2006)) (review essay), reprinted in part in Susan Low Bloch, Vicki C. Jackson & Thomas G. Krattenmaker, Inside the Supreme Court: The Institution and Its Procedures (Thomson/West, 2d ed., 2008)
