Rate My Professor Kim Lane Scheppele

Kim Lane Scheppele is a faculty fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where she previously served for nearly a decade as the John J. O’Brien Professor of Comparative Law and Professor of Sociology from 1996 to 2005. She earned her A.B. in urban studies from Barnard College in 1975, followed by an M.A. in sociology in 1977 and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1985. Scheppele began her academic career at the University of Michigan from 1984 to 1996, holding positions including Arthur F. Thurnau Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, with adjunct appointments in law and the Institute of Public Policy Studies. Her research concentrates on comparative constitutional law, utilizing ethnographic, historical, and doctrinal methods to examine the emergence and collapse of constitutional systems. Following the 1989 revolutions, she focused on post-communist transformations in Eastern Europe, conducting extended fieldwork in Hungary and Russia to study constitutional courts and public engagement with new constitutions. Post-9/11, her work addressed the effects of anti-terrorism laws on constitutional governance, and more recently, she has analyzed democratic backsliding through autocratic legalism, particularly within the European Union context including Brexit and illiberal regimes.