exas A&M University School of Law (Fall 2024 - Present)
Professor of Law
Stanford Law School (2023–Present)
Affiliate, Stanford Constitutional Law Center
Stanford University (January 2023)
Campbell Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
William & Mary Law School (2022–2024)
Associate Professor of Law
William & Mary Law School (2019–2022)
Assistant Professor of Law
Duke Law School (2017–2019)
Olin-Smith Fellow and Postdoctoral Associate
Get To Know Katherine Mims Crocker
In teaching, I try to impart to my students an appreciation for the nuances and uncertainty of legal doctrine and reasoning, an open-minded curiosity about how and why people approach the law differently, an understanding of the role that legal institutions can play in the wider world (and vice versa), and an enthusiasm for the good that lawyers can do in their fellow citizens’ lives.
After law school (Wahoowa!), I clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court of the United States. Then I practiced law at McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond, Virginia, where I focused on business and appellate litigation and worked on several civil-rights cases.
My family! I’m passionate about seeing my three kids develop passions of their own, which currently include swimming, Pokémon, and bugs. With any extra time, I enjoy crossword puzzles, all things food, pop culture, and outdoor activities.
My research focuses on federal courts and structural constitutional law in two main areas. The first relates to civil-rights litigation and constitutional remedies, meaning doctrines that control how courts effectuate constitutional rights. Within this area, I’ve studied the development and effects of qualified and sovereign immunity, as well as the interpretation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the evolution of the Bivens regime. The second area relates to judicial federalism—and more specifically to how federal courts treat state and local-government actors, institutions, and interests. In addition to some of the topics just mentioned, this research includes the law of state standing and the constitutionality of interstate compacts.
