Nina Varsava

Associate Professor of Law

Contact

nvarsava@wisc.edu
608/265-9497
975 Bascom Mall, 8105 Law Building, Madison, WI, USA, 53706-1399

Curriculum Vitae

@NinaVarsava

Education

J.D., Yale Law School
Ph.D., Stanford University
M.A., University of British Columbia
B.A., University of Alberta

Biography

Nina Varsava’s research focuses on procedure, courts, judicial administration, legal ethics, and jurisprudence. She is especially interested in issues of precedent, interpretation, and intersystemic adjudication. She teaches courses on civil procedure, professional responsibility, and philosophy of law.

Varsava’s recent scholarship is forthcoming or has appeared in Legal Theory, the Harvard Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, among other journals. Her scholarship has been covered by media outlets such as The New York Times and the American Bar Association Journal, and has been cited by both federal and state courts.

Following law school, Varsava served as a Judicial Law Clerk for the Supreme Court of Colorado.

Scholarship & Publications

SSRN

Law Repository

Research Interests

Legal Theory
Procedural Justice
Law and Language
Judges and Courts
Legal Ethics
Bioethics and Health Law

Activities

Nina Varsava presented "Stare Decisis, Egregious Error and Imaginative Resistance" at the Texas A&M Law School Faculty Workshop on Nov. 6, 2024.
Nina Varsava published "Judicial Dark Matter" in the University of Chicago Law Review. Read the paper.
Nina Varsava presented "Stare Decisis, Egregious Error, and Imaginative Resistance" during The Collective: Women in Legal Philosophy seminar series Oct. 1, 2024.
Nina Varsava became an affiliate professor of the UW–Madison Philosophy Department in September 2024.
Nina Varsava presented "Stare Decisis, Egregious Error and Imaginative Resistance" during an online Legal Philosophy Discussion Group hosted by the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Brazil, Sept. 10, 2024.
Nina Varsava presented "Stare Decisis, Egregious Error and Imaginative Resistance" during an American Association of Legal and Social Philosophy Online Workshop Sept. 13, 2024.
Nina Varsava's paper, "Opinion Authorship and Precedential Status" was published in the Washington University Law Review in July 2024. Read the paper.
Nina Varsava presented "Reconstructing Precedent" during the Interpretivism and its Critics Conference at Oxford University on June 6, 2024.
Nina Varsava published "The Moral Practice Picture of Law" in JOTWELL on Jan. 29, 2024.
Nina Varsava presented "Precedent as a Moral Practice" during a book symposium on “Law is a Moral Practice” by Scott Hershovitz, hosted by the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México on Jan. 26, 2024.
Nina Varsava was elected to the Executive Board of the American Association of Legal and Social Philosophy on Nov. 13, 2023.
Nina Varsava presented "Reconstructing Precedent" during the Cambridge Legal Theory Discussion Group, an online workshop series, on Nov. 9, 2023.
Nina Varsava presented "Precedent, Reliance, and Dobbs" during the Stanford Law School Public Law Seminar on Oct. 30, 2023.
Nina Varsava presented "Reconstructing Precedent" during the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México Jurisprudence Seminar (online) on Oct. 13, 2023.
Nina Varsava posted "Judicial Dark Matter" to SSRN. The paper is forthcoming in the University of Chicago Law Review and is scheduled to be published in Fall 2024. Read the paper.