Maxwell Stearns, JD
Titles
Venable, Baetjer & Howard Professor of Law
School Affiliation
Carey School of Law
Specialties
economics
US government
Constitution Law
About
Max Stearns, Venable, Baetjer & Howard Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, is an interdisciplinary scholar. He applies the methodologies of economics, broadly defined, to study private and public law, along with institutional decision-making processes. His work combines neoclassical economics, interest group theory, social choice, and game theory, among other tools, to study legal doctrines and lawmaking systems. Stearns’s writings focus on constitutional decision making, the Supreme Court, and the ongoing threats facing our democracy. He has written extensively on standing, the commerce clause, separation of powers, federalism, and equal protection. Professor Stearns’s scholarly articles appear in leading academic journals: Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Notre Dame Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and The University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. Professor Stearns joined the faculty at Maryland Carey Law in fall 2006 after one year as a distinguished visiting professor. He was professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law from 1992 through 2005. Professor Stearns practiced law as a litigation associate with Palmer & Dodge in Boston and with Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz in Philadelphia. He earned his BA, summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania and his JD from the University of Virginia, where he was a member of the Virginia Law Review and the Order of the Coif. Professor Stearns clerked for the Honorable Harrison L. Winter, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He has taught courses in law and economics, public choice, and constitutional law at the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland; the Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia; and Canterbury University Department of Economics and Finance, Christchurch, New Zealand (as visiting Erskine Fellow). He has been a visiting professor at the University of Florida, Fredric G. Levin College of Law, and at the University of Michigan Law School. Professor Stearns served as associate dean for research and faculty development from 2013 to 2017. Professor Stearns teaches Constitutional Law I and II (Governance and Individual Rights) and Law and Economics.
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