Rate My Professor Scott Shapiro

Scott J. Shapiro is the Charles F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Columbia University in 1987, J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990, and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Columbia University in 1996. Shapiro's career includes positions as Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan from 2005 to 2008, and at Yale Law School since 2008, following earlier roles at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law from 1996 to 2005. He served as a fellow at Stanford University's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences during 2003-04 and holds editorial roles as co-editor of Legal Theory and co-editor for the Philosophy of Law section of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In recent years, he has been Special Assistant for AI Ethics to the Chief AI Officer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (2024-2025), founded the Yale Legal AI Lab, and co-founded the Yale Documentary Project.

Shapiro's research focuses on philosophy of law, jurisprudence, international law, criminal law, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. His major publications include Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks (2023); The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World (with Oona Hathaway, 2017), which received the 2018 Scribes Book Award and was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize; Legality (2011); Dimensions of Normativity: New Essays on Metaethics and Jurisprudence (editor, 2019); and the Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law (co-editor, 2002). Notable articles encompass 'Outcasting: Enforcement in Domestic and International Law' (Yale L.J., 2011, with Hathaway), 'Law, Morality and Everything Else: General Jurisprudence as a Branch of Metanormative Theory' (Ethics, 2017, with David Plunkett), and recent works like 'Put the Car on the Stand': SMT-based Oracles for Investigating Decisions (CSLaw 2024). He has received awards such as the Gregory Kavka Award for best published article in political philosophy (1998-1999) and the American Philosophical Association best paper in jurisprudence. Shapiro's planning theory of law has significantly influenced legal philosophy.