University of Georgia
School of Law
331 Dean Rusk Hall
Athens, GA 30602
United States
B.A., University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire
J.D., University of Wisconsin
B.C.L., University of Oxford
Constitutional Law
Election Law
Lori A. Ringhand teaches courses on constitutional law and election law. She has been a member of the University of Georgia School of Law faculty since 2008 and was named a Hosch Professor in 2012 and awarded a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professorship, UGA's highest teaching honor, in 2021.
She is a nationally known Supreme Court scholar and the author of two books about the Supreme Court confirmation process: Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings and Constitutional Change (with Paul M. Collins) published by Cambridge University Press; and Supreme Bias: Gender and Race in U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, (with Christina L. Boyd and Paul M. Collins), forthcoming Fall 2023 with Stanford University Press. She also is the co-author of Constitutional Law: A Context and Practices Casebook, which is part of a series of casebooks dedicated to incorporating active teaching and learning methods into traditional law school casebooks. Ringhand also publishes extensively on election law related issues, and was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Chair Award at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland to explore the different approaches to campaign finance regulation taken by the United States and the United Kingdom.
Ringhand served as the law school's associate dean for academic affairs from 2015 to 2018 and as the interim director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center from January 2020 to July 2021. She was presented with the C. Ronald Ellington Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2010 and 2015, and the John C. O'Byrne Memorial Faculty Award for Furthering Student-Faculty Relations in 2017. For the 2016-17 academic year, she served as a Women Leadership Fellow, a program developed by the UGA Provost's Office.
Ringhand graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she served as an articles editor on the Wisconsin Law Review. She also holds a Bachelor of Civil Law degree, awarded with distinction, from the University of Oxford. Before coming to UGA, she served on the faculty of the University of Kentucky College of Law and as a visiting scholar at the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law.
ARTICLES
Understanding the Elephant: Considering UK Electoral Reform in Light of the US Experience, 2020 Pub. L. Rev. 701 (2020).
First Amendment (Un)Exceptionalism: A Comparative Taxonomy of Campaign Finance Reform Proposals in the United States and United Kingdom, 81 Ohio St. L.J. 405 (2020).
The Role of Nominee Gender and Race at U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, 52 L. & Soc'y Rev. 871 (2018) (with P. Collins).
Neil Gorsuch and the Ginsburg Rules, 93 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 475 (2018) (with P. Collins).
The Institutionalization of Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, 41 L. & Soc. Inquiry 126 (2016) (with P. Collins).
Voter Viewpoint Discrimination: Reconsidering a First Amendment Challenge to Voter Participation Restrictions, 13 Election L.J. 288 (2014) (peer reviewed).
Functioning Just Fine: The Unappreciated Value of the Supreme Court Confirmation Process, 61 Drake L. Rev. 1025 (2013) (symposium issue on political dysfunction and the Constitution).
Let's Talk: Judicial Decisions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, 96 Judicature 7 (2012) (with A. Batta et al.).
Aliens on the Bench: Lessons in Identity, Race and Politics From the First "Modern" Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing to Today, 2010 Mich. St. L. Rev. 795 (2011).
May it Please the Senate: An Empirical Analysis of the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings of Supreme Court Nominees, 1939-2009, 60 Am. U. L. Rev. 589 (2011) (with P. Collins).
In Defense of Ideology: A Principled Approach to the Supreme Court Confirmation Process, 18 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 131 (2009).
"I'm Sorry, I Can't Answer That": Positive Legal Scholarship and the Supreme Court Confirmation Process, 10 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 331 (2008).
The Rehnquist Court: A By The Numbers Retrospective, 9 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1033 (2007) (an early draft of this paper was selected from a competitive call for papers and was presented at the First Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, jointly sponsored by NYU, Cornell and the University of Texas law schools).
Judicial Activism: An Empirical Examination of Voting Behavior on the Rehnquist Natural Court, 24 Const. Comment. 43 (2007).
An Empirical Analysis of the Confirmation Hearings of the Rehnquist Court Justices, 24 Const. Comment. 127 (2007) (with Jason Czarnezki and William Ford).
The Roberts Court: Year 1, 73 Tenn. L. Rev. 607 (2006).
UK Election Law: A Critical Examination (book review), 16 L. & Pol. Book Rev. 462 (2006).
Fig Leaves, Fairytales, and Constitutional Foundations: Debating Judicial Review in Britain, 43 Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 865 (2005).
Defining Democracy: The Supreme Court's Campaign Finance Dilemma, 56 Hastings L.J. 77 (2004).
Concepts of Equality in British Campaign Finance Reform Proposals, 22 Oxford J. Legal Stud. 253 (2002).
BOOKS
Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings and Constitutional Change (Cambridge University Press, 2013) (with P. Collins).
Constitutional Law: A Context and Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press, 2013) (with D. Schwartz).
CHAPTERS
"The Selection of U.S. Supreme Court Justices" in Routledge Handbook of Judicial Behavior (R. Howard and K. Randazzo eds.) (Routledge, 2018) (with J. ben-Aaron and P. Collins).
"The Jurisprudence of Supreme Court Justice Kennedy" in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan Reference USA, 2008).