University of Georgia
School of Law
307A Hirsch Hall
Athens, GA 30602
United States
B.A., Swarthmore College
J.D., University of Chicago
William Ortman joined the University of Georgia School of Law as a professor of law in fall of 2025.
Ortman specializes in criminal law, criminal procedure and evidence. Since 2016, he has served on the faculty at Wayne State University Law School, where he was named the David Adamany Research Scholar (2024–25) and the Edward M. Wise Research Scholar (2020–23). While at Wayne State, Ortman was recognized with multiple teaching awards. He previously held positions as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School (2022) and as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School (2013–16).
Ortman’s scholarship focuses on the institutional and legal design of criminal adjudication. His recent work includes “Confession and Confrontation,” published in the California Law Review (2025), and “Cliff Running” (with Dov Fox), which is forthcoming in the Washington University Law Review. His work has also appeared in the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Boston University Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the Michigan Law Review and the Stanford Law Review.
Before entering the legal academy, Ortman practiced as a criminal defense lawyer and commercial litigator at Weinhardt & Logan and Belin McCormick in Des Moines, Iowa. He also clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Ortman earned his J.D. with highest honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as an articles editor on the University of Chicago Law Review. He holds a B.A. with highest honors from Swarthmore College.
ARTICLES
Cliff Running, 103 Wash. U. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025) (with D. Fox).
Plea Bargaining Abolitionism: A History, 22 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. (forthcoming 2025) (symposium).
Confession and Confrontation, 113 Cal. L. Rev. 377 (2025).
Crawford and Criminal Justice, 57 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 765 (2024) (symposium).
The Prosecution Bar, 101 Wash. U. L. Rev. 13 (2023).
The Informed Jury, 75 Vand. L. Rev. 823 (2022) (with D. Epps).
Confrontation in the Age of Plea Bargaining, 121 Colum. L. Rev. 451 (2021).
The Defender General, 168 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1469 (2020) (with D. Epps).
When Plea Bargaining Became Normal, 100 B.U. L. Rev. 1435 (2020).
Second-Best Criminal Justice, 96 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1061 (2019).
The Lottery Docket, 116 Mich. L. Rev. 705 (2018) (with D. Epps).
The Yates Memo Versus Administrative Law, 165 U. Pa. L. Rev. Online 191 (2017).
Probable Cause Revisited, 68 Stan. L. Rev. 511 (2016).
Rulemaking’s Missing Tier, 68 Ala. L. Rev. 225 (2016).
Chevron for Juries, 36 Cardozo L. Rev. 1287 (2015).