Energy and administrative law scholar Jim Rossi will join Vanderbilt’s law faculty in summer 2012. Professor Rossi’s appointment was announced by Dean Chris Guthrie.
“Jim Rossi is one of the country’s leading energy law scholars, and his work also addresses critical issues in administrative law and state constitutional law,” Dean Guthrie said. “We are extremely pleased to announce his appointment.”
Rossi will be affiliated with Vanderbilt’s Environmental Law Program, which is led by distinguished environmental law scholars Michael Vandenbergh and J.B. Ruhl. “Jim brings his expertise in energy law to further build our exceptional Environmental Law Program as well as contribute to our general strength in regulatory and administrative law,” Guthrie said.
Rossi is currently the Harry M. Walborsky Professor and Associate Dean for Research at Florida State University College of Law, where he has taught Administrative Law, Energy Law and Torts. His scholarship addresses legal issues of importance to the energy industry, such as the roles of state and local utility regulation, innovations in renewable and clean energy, and electric power transmission siting and cost allocation. He was a founding author of Energy, Economics and the Environment, a widely-used casebook on energy law now in its third edition (Foundation Press, 2010) (with Fred Bosselman, Jacqueline Weaver, David Spence and Joel Eisen), and also has authored a monograph on public law issues in the U.S. energy industry, Regulatory Bargaining and Public Law (Cambridge University Press, 2005). His articles on administrative law topics such as interagency coordination, judicial review, participation in the regulatory process, and the connection between judicial and administrative remedies have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, Washington University Law Quarterly, Iowa Law Review, Administrative Law Review and in many other journals. In addition, Rossi has published works addressing important issues related to state constitutional and administrative law, including a recent edited collection of essays, Dual Enforcement of Constitutional Norms: The New Frontier of State Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2010) (with James Gardner).
Rossi previously served a visiting professor at Vanderbilt Law School, and also has taught at Harvard Law School, the University of Texas Law School and the University of North Carolina Law School. He holds an LL.M. from Yale Law School, a J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law, and a B.A. in economics from Arizona State University. Before entering the legal academy, he practiced energy law in Washington, D.C., with Sutherland Asbill & Brennan and Miller Balis & O’Neil.
“The high-level engagement of both students and faculty at Vanderbilt stood out to me when I was a visiting faculty member in spring 2007,” Rossi said. “Vanderbilt is preeminent in the fields of both environmental law and administrative law, and I am excited about the opportunity to be a part of and contribute to these programs.”
