Vanderbilt University Law School
Tracey E. George
Professor of Law Professor of Political Science
Voice: (615) 322-6310
Fax: (615) 322-6631
Email: tracey.george@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Room 291A
View curriculum vitae (.pdf)
Links
Research Interest(s)
U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals, judicial behavior, judicial selection, empirical legal scholarship, legal education, legal labor market
Education
J.D. Stanford Law School
B.A. and B.S. Southern Methodist University
Biography
Tracey George brings a social science perspective to law and courts, examining how institutional design influences actions and outcomes with particular attention to federal appeals courts. Her research on the behavior of federal judges and courts has been published in the American Political Science Review, Judicature, North Carolina Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Supreme Court Economic Review and Vanderbilt Law Review among others. She also has published studies of legal education and legal scholarship and serves on the LSAC Grants Subcommittee and AALS Research Committee, which support work on legal education and the legal profession. She is presently engaged in a multi-year empirical study of the legal academic labor market. In addition to Civil Procedure and Commercial Law, Professor George teaches Contracts and has twice earned a first-year teaching prize for the course, once at Vanderbilt and once at Northwestern. Before joining the Vanderbilt law faculty in 2004, Professor George served as Professor of Law at Northwestern University Law School, where she was also Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research. After graduating from Stanford Law School, she clerked for Judge Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and then practiced law in Washington, D.C. with Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin. From 1996 through 2001, Professor George served as an Associate Professor of Law and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri School of Law. She joined the Vanderbilt law faculty after serving as a Visiting Professor during the Spring 2004 semester.
Representative Publications
Books
What Every Law Student Really Needs to Know: An Introduction to the Study of Law (Aspen 2009) (with Suzanna Sherry) (Amazon page)
Articles
"Mr. Sunstein’s Neighborhood: Won’t You Be Our Co-Author,” Green Bag Almanac (2009) (with Paul Edelman)
“Remaking the United States Supreme Court in the Courts’ of Appeals Image,” Duke Law Journal (2009) (with Chris Guthrie)
“’The Threes’: Reimagining Supreme Court Decision Making,” Vanderbilt Law Review (2008) (with Chris Guthrie).
“Chief Judges: The Limits of Attitudinal Theory and Possible Paradox of Managerial Judging,” Vanderbilt Law Review (2008) (with Albert H. Yoon)
“From Judge to Justice: Social Background Theory and the U.S. Supreme Court,” North Carolina Law Review (2008)
"Six Degrees of Cass Sunstein: Collaboration Networks in Legal Scholarship," Green Bag (2007)
"An Empirical Study of Empirical Legal Scholarship: The Top Law Schools," Indiana Law Journal (2005)
"The Federal Court System: A Principal-Agent Perspective," 47 St. Louis University Law Journal 819-834 (2003) (with Albert H. Yoon) (symposium)
"Supreme Court Monitoring of Courts of Appeals En Banc," 9 Supreme Court Economic Review 171-204 (2001) (with Michael E. Solimine)
"The Dynamics and Determinants of the Decision to Grant En Banc Review," 74 Washington Law Review 213-274 (1999)
“Developing a Positive Theory of Decisionmaking on U.S. Courts of Appeals,” Ohio State Law Journal (1998)
“On the Nature of Supreme Court Decision Making,” American Political Science Review (1992) (with Lee Epstein)
Presentations
Role of Law in the Study of Judicial Behavior, Searle Center on Law, Regulation & Economic Growth-Northwestern University Law Conference on Political Science and Law, Northwestern University School of Law (with Mitu Gulati) (September 26, 2009)
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