Center for Law & the Economy Workshop: Stephen Griffin (Tulane)

Center for Law and the Economy Workshop Series 

The Murphy Institute's Center for Law and the Economy hosts workshops each semester featuring Tulane and guest faculty from the fields of law, economics, and political science. Presenters share their latest research on a range of topics, including regulation, civil rights, the criminal legal system, and other key issues in law and political economy. Papers are distributed beforehand to the participants who read the paper and prepare discussion questions for the presenter.

The workshops, organized by Adam Feibelman, Director of the Center on Law and the Economy and Sumter D. Marks Professor of Law at Tulane Law School, are open to faculty, students, and the Tulane community. 

Stephen Griffin teaches constitutional law and is interested in constitutional theory and history.  Over the course of his career, he has emphasized the key role of constitutional change in American constitutionalism, including the role of formal and informal amendments and “the Constitution outside the courts.”

Griffin is the author of three books: American Constitutionalism: From Theory to Politics (Princeton University Press 1996); Long Wars and the Constitution (Harvard University Press 2013) and Broken Trust: Dysfunctional Government and Constitutional Reform (University Press of Kansas 2015).  He has co-edited a reader on constitutional theory, Constitutional Theory: Arguments and Perspectives (Carolina Academic Press). His writings, which include more than 50 articles, book chapters,  book reviews, and short contributions have been cited in political science and history journals as well as law reviews.

He received the Sumter Marks Award for his scholarship in 2000 and the Felix Frankfurter Distinguished Teaching Award, the Law School’s highest teaching award, from the Classes of 2002 and 2022.  He was the Law School’s Vice Dean of Academic Affairs in 2001-04 and 2006-09 and Interim Dean in 2009-10.