Rate My Professor Amy Wax

Amy Wax is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She holds a B.S. summa cum laude in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale College (1975), completed a Marshall Scholarship in philosophy, physiology, and psychology at Somerville College, Oxford University (1976), earned an M.D. cum laude with distinction in neuroscience from Harvard Medical School (1981), and received a J.D. from Columbia Law School (1987), where she served as Editor and Senior Revising Editor of the Columbia Law Review. Trained as a neurologist, she completed residency at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (1982-1985) and practiced as a consulting neurologist before entering legal practice.

From 1988 to 1994, Wax served as Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, arguing 15 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. She joined the University of Virginia School of Law as Associate Professor in 1994, advancing to Professor in 1999 and Class of 1948 Professor of Scholarly Research in Law (2000-2001). Since 2001 at Penn Law, she has held the Robert Mundheim Professorship since 2007. Her research addresses social welfare law and policy, labor and employment law, the law and economics of work and family, remedies, social science and law, law and neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology and law. Key publications include the book Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century (Hoover Institution Press/Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); articles such as "Disparate Impact Realism" (William & Mary Law Review, 2011), "The Family Law Doctrine of Equivalence" (Michigan Law Review, 2009), "Educating the Disadvantaged—Two Models" (Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 2017), and "Debating Immigration Restriction: The Case for Low and Slow" (Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, 2018); and chapters in volumes like the Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics (2017). Wax has received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching (University of Pennsylvania, 2015), A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course (2005), and Harvey Levin Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence. She teaches Civil Procedure, Labor Law, Social Welfare Law & Policy, Remedies, Law and Economics of Work and Family, and Law & Neuroscience, and participates in the MacArthur Foundation study group on Law & Neuroscience.