Nina Varsava

Assistant Professor of Law

Nina Varsava

Contact

nvarsava@wisc.edu
608-265-9498
Room 8105, Law School

PDF Icon Curriculum Vitae

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 jurisprudence.

Varsava’s recent scholarship is forthcoming or has appeared in 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 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.

 Varsava is on leave for the Fall 2023 semester.

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 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. 

  • Nina Varsava's article "Precedent, Reliance, and Dobbs" was cited in Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Inc. v. Reynolds ex rel. State, No. 22-2036, 2023 WL 4635932, at *8 (Iowa June 16, 2023). 

  • Nina Varsava presented "Reconstructing Precedent" during the AALS Jurisprudence Section Junior Scholars Workshop on Aug. 4, 2023.

  • Nina Varsava presented "Opinion Authorship and Precedential Status" during the University of Michigan Law and Economics Workshop on April 13, 2023.

  • Nina Varsava was a speaker during "Roe at 50, The Anniversary That Wasn't" on March 28, 2023. The event was an interdisciplinary discussion on the state of abortion law and reproductive justice, which was hosted by the UW-Madison Humanities Center.

  • Nina Varsava presented "Derivative Recognition and Intersystemic Interpretation" during a UCLA Legal Theory Workshop on March 23, 2023.

  • Nina Varsava presented "Precedent, Reliance Interests and the Dobbs Decision" during the Washington State University Bioethics Grand Rounds on Feb. 8, 2023. 

  • Nina Varsava presented "Judicial Visitors" during the AALS Annual Meeting, Section on the Empirical Study of Legal Education and the Legal Profession, Jan. 6, 2023.

  • Nina Varsava presented "Publication Disparities at the U.S. Federal Courts of Appeals" during the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods seminar series on Dec. 5, 2022. 

  • Nina Varsava presented "Publication Disparities at the Federal Courts of Appeals" during the 12th Annual Junior Faculty Federal Courts Workshop hosted by the University of Florida Levin College of Law on Dec. 2, 2022.

  • Nina Varsava presented "Stare Decisis After Dobbs" during the 2022 Wisconsin Law Review Symposium–Controlling the Supreme Court: Now and "Far into the Future"–on Oct. 29, 2022.

Teaching Areas

  • Civil Procedure
  • Conflict of Laws
  • Ethics & Professional Responsibilities
  • Federal Jurisdiction
  • Jurisprudence

Recently Taught Courses

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