Barry Cushman, the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of History at the University of Virginia, will join the faculty of the Notre Dame Law School this fall as the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law, Dean Nell Jessup Newton has announced.
Newton observed that the John P. Murphy Foundation Chair expresses the Law School’s admiration for Cushman’s achievements and excellence as a teacher, colleague, leader and scholar, and for his status as one of the leading legal historians of his generation.
Cushman received his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, and his J.D., M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia, where he has served on the faculty for 15 years. His book, “Rethinking the New Deal Court: The Structure of a Constitutional Revolution” (Oxford University Press), was awarded the American Historical Association’s Littleton-Griswold Prize in American Law and Society in 1998. In 2003, he was honored with the University of Virginia’s All-University Teaching Award. Cushman has taught regularly both in the law school and in the history department at Virginia, and for several years directed both the law school’s Program on Legal and Constitutional History and the university’s Joint Degree Program in Legal History. Before entering teaching, Cushman practiced as an estate planning and probate attorney with the Los Angeles firm of Riordan & McKinzie. He is a former Samuel I. Golieb Fellow in Legal History at New York University School of Law, and is currently the Forbes Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program in the Department of Politics at Princeton University.
John M. Finnis, the Biolchini Family Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School and professor of law in the University of Oxford, noted that Cushman will strengthen and lead Notre Dame’s already strong group of scholars in public-law areas, and that his interdisciplinary experience and accomplishments will contribute to the activities of a number of the University’s departments and enhance the Law School’s various collaborations with them.
At Notre Dame Law School, Cushman will teach and write in a range of areas, including legal and constitutional history, constitutional law and trusts and estates.
Originally published by Charles Williams at law.nd.edu on April 3.