
Emory University
He is always prepared for class and very approachable. He cold calls, but is very gracious about it. Leg/Reg sometimes brings out the politics in people, and not always in the friendliest of ways, but he remained fair to every viewpoint shared in class and fostered mutual understanding. He models what learning should be!
Jonathan Nash is the Robert Howell Hall Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law, where he has served since 2008, initially as Professor of Law from July 2008 to May 2017 before being appointed to the endowed chair in May 2017. He also held the position of Associate Dean for Research from August 2019 to December 2021 and August to December 2022. Nash directs Emory Law’s Center on Federalism and Intersystemic Governance since 2018 and the Emory Center for Law and Social Science from 2018 to 2021 and in 2024. Prior to Emory, he was Robert C. Cudd Professor of Environmental Law at Tulane Law School from July 2007 to June 2008, Robert C. Cudd Associate Professor of Environmental Law from October 2004 to June 2007, and Associate Professor from July 2002 to October 2004. Earlier roles include Harry A. Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law at University of Chicago Law School from September 2000 to July 2002, and positions at New York University Center on Environmental and Land Use Law in 1999-2000. Before academia, Nash clerked for the Honorable Donald Stuart Russell on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for the Honorable Nina Gershon, then Chief Magistrate Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and worked as an attorney in New York. He earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Emory University in August 2021, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School in June 1999, a J.D. magna cum laude from New York University School of Law in May 1992, and a B.A. in Mathematics summa cum laude from Columbia College in May 1988.
Nash specializes in federal courts and jurisdiction, the study of courts and judges, and environmental law, with additional expertise in administrative law, civil procedure, law and economics, legislation and regulation, and property law. His scholarship, published in leading journals including the Yale Law Journal, Virginia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Stanford Law Review, has been cited by the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Federal Circuits. Key publications include the book Environmental Law and Policy: The Essentials (Aspen Publishers 2010); 'The Unconstitutional Conditions Vacuum in Criminal Procedure,' 133 Yale L.J. 1401 (2024, with Kay L. Levine and Robert A. Schapiro); 'When Is Legal Methodology Binding?,' 109 Iowa L. Rev. 739 (2024); 'Personal Jurisdictional Limits Over Plaintiff Class Action Claims,' 96 S. Cal. L. Rev. 943 (2023); 'The Summary Judgment Revolution That Wasn’t,' 65 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 389 (2023, with D. Daniel Sokol); 'Bad Faith Prosecution,' 109 Va. L. Rev. 835 (2023, with Ann Woolhandler and Michael G. Collins); and 'Promoting Regulatory Prediction,' 97 Ind. L.J. 203 (2022, with Jonathan S. Masur). Honors include Order of the Coif, Vanderbilt Medal for Outstanding Contributions to the School of Law, Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Survey of American Law, and Phi Beta Kappa. Nash has served on faculty committees at Emory Law, including Appointments (Chair 2011-13, 2021-24), Promotion & Tenure (Chair 2018-19), and Curriculum.
Professional Email: jnash4@emory.edu