Hon. Amy Coney Barrett

Professor of Law

Resources for media

The Honorable Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in October 2017. She is a Notre Dame Law School alumna and has taught as a member of the Law School’s faculty since 2002.

Judge Barrett teaches and researches in the areas of federal courts, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation. Her scholarship in these fields has been published in leading journals, including the Columbia, Virginia, and Texas Law Reviews. From 2010-2016, she served by appointment of the Chief Justice on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. She has been selected as "Distinguished Professor of the Year" by three of the Law School's graduating classes.

Judge Barrett earned her B.A. in English literature, magna cum laude, from Rhodes College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and, among other honors, was chosen by the faculty as the most outstanding graduate in the college’s English department. She earned her J.D., summa cum laude, from Notre Dame, where she was a Kiley Fellow, earned the Hoynes Prize, the Law School’s highest honor, and served as executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review.

Before joining the Notre Dame faculty, Judge Barrett clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. As an associate at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C., she litigated constitutional, criminal, and commercial cases in both trial and appellate courts. Judge Barrett has served as a visiting associate professor and John M. Olin Fellow in Law at the George Washington University Law School, as a visiting associate professor of law at the University of Virginia and is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI).

Courses Taught

LAW60307, Constitutional Law

LAW60308, Civil Procedure

LAW70201, Evidence

LAW70311, Federal Courts

LAW73303, Constitutional Theory Seminar

LAW73370, Statutory Interpretation Seminar

Scholarship

Congressional Insiders and Outsiders, U.Chi. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2017).

Originalism and Stare Decisis, 92 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1921 (2017).

Congressional Originalism, 19 U. Penn. J. of Const. L. 1 (2017) (with John Copeland Nagle)

Countering the Majoritarian Difficulty, 31 Const. Comm. 61 (2017).

Statutory Interpretation in The Encyclopedia of American Governance (2016).

Federal Court Jurisdiction in The Encyclopedia of American Governance (2016).

Substantive Canons and Faithful Agency, 90 B.U. L. REV. 109 (2010).

Federal Jurisdiction in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Introduction: Stare Decisis and Nonjudicial Actors, 83 Notre Dame Law Review 1147 (2008).

Procedural Common Law, 94 Virginia L. Rev. 813-88 (2008).

The Supervisory Power of the Supreme Court, 103 Colum. L. Rev. 324 (2006).

Statutory Stare Decisis in the Courts of Appeals, 73 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 317 (2005).

Stare Decisis and Due Process, 74 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1011 (2003).

Catholic Judges in Capital Cases, 81 Marquette L.Rev. 303 (1998) (with John H. Garvey)

Areas of Expertise

Civil Procedure

Constitutional Law

Evidence

Federal Courts

Federal Courts & Federal Litigation

Statutory Interpretation

In the News

U.S. Senate confirms Professor Amy Barrett as federal judge – October 31, 2017