UC College of Law lecture examines Supreme Court’s role in America life

Professor Nourse, director Georgetown Law’s first Center on Congressional Studies, is one of the nation’s leading scholars on statutory interpretation, Congress, and the separation of powers. 

She has published widely on the power of the President and the separation of powers, Reclaiming the Constitutional Text from Originalism:  The Case of Executive Power, and on constitutional rights, the story of Skinner v. Oklahoma and American eugenics.  She is a co-author of the most up to date casebook on legislation:  Statutes, Regulation, and Interpretation:  Legislation and Administration in the Republic of Statutes. Her latest book, Misreading Law, Misreading Democracy, was published by Harvard Press. 

Professor Nourse has had a distinguished career in government. In 2015-2016, she served as Chief Counsel to the Vice President of the United States.  Prior to that she served as an appellate lawyer in the Justice Department and Special Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  The story of her role in the fight for the original Violence Against Women Act is told in the 2009 book Equal:  Women Reshape American Law.

Professor Nourse began her legal career in New York, clerking for the Honorable Edward Weinfeld of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and practicing at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison.   She left private practice to serve as junior counsel to the Senate-Iran Contra Committee under Senators Warren Rudman and Daniel Inouye.