Robert Yablon

Associate Professor

Contact

robert.yablon@wisc.edu
608/890-0218
975 Bascom Mall, 9110 Law Building, Madison, WI, USA, 53706-1399

Education

J.D., Yale Law School
M.Phil., University of Oxford
B.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison

Biography

Robert Yablon is an Associate Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the State Democracy Research Initiative. His research interests include political and election law, constitutional law, federal and state courts, and statutory interpretation. He teaches Civil Procedure, Federal Jurisdiction, and the Law of Democracy.

Professor Yablon's recent publications have appeared in the NYU Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and Iowa Law Review. In 2018, UW Law students honored Professor Yablon with the Classroom Teacher of the Year Award, and in 2019 he received a University Distinguished Teaching Award.

Professor Yablon received his bachelor's degree in economics and political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his master's degree in social policy from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He then earned his J.D. at Yale Law School, where he was an Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Following law school, Professor Yablon served as a law clerk for Judge William Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. He also worked in private practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. He has been the principal author of dozens of appellate and trial-level briefs, and has argued in a number of state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Scholarship & Publications

SSRN

Law Repository

Activities

A new "Election Law in a Nutshell," written by Dean Dan Tokaji and Robert Yablon, provides a succinct and thorough description of the law governing elections, the right to vote and the political process in the U.S.
Rob Yablon wrote a piece for Election Law Blog on June 29, 2023, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Moore v. Harper to draw attention to how the Purcell principle might shape what comes next. "Bottom line: Moore seems to give litigants an opening to argue in federal court that a state court has overreached, but as the doctrine now stands, Purcell will limit federal court interventions as an election nears."
Rob Yablon posted a new paper to SSRN,“Gerrylaundering.” Read the abstract and download the article.
Miriam Seifter and Rob Yablon were panelists for "Meritorious RBG: The Legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg On and Off the Bench" at the 19th Annual Meeting of the Eastern District of Wisconsin Bar Association in May.
In October, Robert Yablon participated on a Real Town Hall panel on the electoral process, which was organized by the Wisconsin Alumni Association. The panel was recorded for online viewing.
Robert Yablon's essay, "Political Advertising, Digital Platforms, and the Democratic Deficiencies of Self-Regulation," was published in a special election law compendium of Minnesota Law Review Headnotes.
The 2019 Wisconsin Law Review Symposium, which was chaired by former UW Law Professor Andrew Coan, featured a number of UW Law faculty, including Anuj Desai, Howie Erlanger, Neil Komesar, John Ohnesorge, Asifa Quraishi-Landes, David Schwartz, Miriam Seifter and Rob Yablon. The symposium, titled "Rationing the Constitution: How Judicial Capacity Shapes Supreme Decision-Making,” was held Oct. 24 and 25.
Rob Yablon wrote an issue brief for the American Constitution Society (with John H. Thompson, the director of the U.S. Census Bureau during the Obama Administration), "Preparing for the 2020 Census: Considerations for State Attorneys General." In conjunction with the release of the brief, the two were interviewed for an ACS podcast on the topic.
Rob Yablon's article, "Campaigns, Inc.," has been accepted for publication later this year in Minnesota Law Review.
Rob Yablon participated on the panel, "Partisan Gerrymandering and the U.S. Constitution," which examined Gill v. Whitford, a gerrymandering case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. The program was sponsored by the Madison Institute in September.
Robert Yablon's article, "Voting and Spending and the Right to Participate," was recently recommended on Jotwell: The Journal of Things We Like Lots. In her review of the article, Jessica Bulman-Pozen writes, "Judges and scholars alike will benefit from Yablon’s careful doctrinal analysis and his ambitious yet grounded argument for a fundamental right to participate in the electoral process."