Scott Dodson

Bio

An expert in civil procedure and federal courts, Professor Scott Dodson has published ten book titles, including The Evolving State of American Procedural Exceptionalism (Edward Elgar 2027) (coedited with Margaret Woo), International Encyclopaedia of Civil Procedure: United States (Wolters Kluwer 2025), The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Cambridge 2015, 2d ed. 2022), and New Pleading in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford 2013). He has written more than 150 shorter works appearing in Stanford Law Review, New York University Law Review, Michigan Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, California Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, American Journal of Comparative Law, American Journal of International Law, Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, and International & Comparative Law Quarterly, among others. He has won numerous awards for his scholarship, his teaching, and his service. His scholarly writings have been cited in more than fifty court opinions, including by the U.S. Supreme Court, six state supreme courts, and ten different U.S. Courts of Appeals. His works have been downloaded nearly 100,000 times, and he was listed in the top-10 most-cited civil-procedure scholars for 2010-2014 and 2016-2020. He has delivered lectures in Brazil, Croatia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Professor Dodson is a frequent commentator in the news, including appearances on the 10:00 Nightly News, NPR, and CNN. From 2021-2023, he hosted and produced the semimonthly podcast Litigation Briefs: Media Shorts on Law and Courts. In 2024, Professor Dodson was counsel of record for the petitioner in Harrow v. Department of Defense, winning a 9-0 reversal from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Selected Scholarship

• Restoring Chevron Deference by Statute
  75 Duke Law Journal 2026

• Transcultural Courts
  15 International Journal of Procedural Law 3 2025

• The Complexities of Consent to Personal Jurisdiction
  113 California Law Review 333 2025

• Personal Jurisdiction and Federalism
  103 Washington Law Review 1 2025

• The Supreme Court and Public Opinion
  111 Iowa Law Review 117 2025

• The Missing Millions: Cy Pres in Federal Securities Class Actions
  74 Emory Law Journal 1 (with Joe Grundfest) 2024

• Why Do In-State Plaintiffs Invoke Diversity Jurisdiction?
  49 Law & Social Inquiry 1283 2024

• How Economic Downturns Affect Legal Markets
  31 International Journal of the Legal Profession 247 (with Max Bilsborough) 2024

• Rule 4 and Personal Jurisdiction
  99 Notre Dame Law Review 1 2023

• The Making of the Supreme Court Rules
  90 George Washington Law Review 866 2022

• Cooperativism in the American Adversarial Tradition
  40 Civil Justice Quarterly 283 2021

• Article III and the Political-Question Doctrine
  116 Northwestern University Law Review 681 2021

• Personal Jurisdiction in Comparative Context
  68 American Journal of Comparative Law 701 2020

• Plaintiff Personal Jurisdiction and Venue Transfer
  117 Michigan Law Review 1463 2019

• Beyond Bias in Diversity Jurisdiction
  69 Duke Law Journal 267 2019

• Personal Jurisdiction and Aliens
  116 Michigan Law Review 1205 (with Bill Dodge) 2018

• Should the Rules Committees Have an Amicus Role?
  104 Virginia Law Review 1 2018

• Personal Jurisdiction and Aggregation
  113 Northwestern University Law Review 1 2018

• A Negative Retrospective of Rule 23
  92 New York University Law Review 917 2017

• Jurisdiction and Its Effects
  105 Georgetown Law Journal 619 2017

• An Opt-In Option for Class Actions
  115 Michigan Law Review 171 2016

• The Gravitational Force of Federal Law
  164 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 703 2016

• Joint and Several Jurisdiction
  65 Duke Law Journal 1323 (with Phil Pucillo) 2016

• A Revolution in Jurisdiction
  THE LEGACY OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Ch. 9, Page 137 (Cambridge University Press) 2015

• Party Subordinance in Federal Litigation
  83 George Washington Law Review 1 2014

• Rethinking Extraordinary Circumstances
  106 Northwestern University Law Review 377 2012

• Hybridizing Jurisdiction
  99 California Law Review 1439 2011

• The Complexity of Jurisdictional Clarity
  97 Virginia Law Review 1 2011

• New Pleading, New Discovery
  109 Michigan Law Review 53 2010

• Comparative Convergences in Pleading Standards
  158 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 441 2010

• Mandatory Rules
  61 Stanford Law Review 1 2008

• In Search of Removal Jurisdiction
  102 Northwestern University Law Review 55 2008

• A Darwinist View of the Living Constitution
  61 Vanderbilt Law Review 1319 2008