Bob Bauer

  • Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence
  • Co-Director of the Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic
Assistants: Susan Hodges
  susan.hodges@nyu.edu       212.998.6478
August Kahn
  ak12380@nyu.edu       212.998.6210
Bob Bauer

AREAS OF RESEARCH

Administrative Law, Constitutional Law and Theory, Election Law, Legal Ethics, National Security Law and Practice


Bob Bauer is professor of practice and distinguished scholar in residence at the New York University School of Law and co-director of NYU Law’s Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic. Bauer served as White House Counsel to President Obama from 2009 to 2011. In 2013, the President named him to be co-chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. In 2021, President Biden named him to be co-chair of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Bob was general counsel to Obama for America, the president’s campaign organization, in 2008 and 2012. Bob has also served as co-counsel to the New Hampshire State Senate in the trial of Chief Justice David A. Brock (2000) and counsel to the Democratic leader in the trial of President William Jefferson Clinton (1999).

Bob is co-author with Jack Goldsmith of After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (2020), books on federal campaign finance and numerous articles on law and politics for legal periodicals. He has co-authored numerous bipartisan reports on policy and legal reform, including “The American Voting Experience: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration” (Presidential Commission on Election Administration, 2014); “The State of Campaign Finance in the United States” (Bipartisan Policy Center, 2018); and “Democratizing the Debates” (Annenberg Working Group on Presidential Campaign Debate Reform, 2015). He is a Contributing Editor of Lawfare and has published opinion pieces on constitutional and political law issues in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Atlantic, among other publications.


Courses

  • Presidential Powers Seminar

    This seminar will focus on major current issues in the uses of executive power. These specific issues will vary by the time the seminar meets, but will include issues concerning the separation of powers, the scope of the President powers under statutes and the Constitution, and the relation of the executive branch to the courts. Readings and discussion will including contemporary cases, the historical development of legal doctrine on these issues and the changing nature of the presidency over time. We will examine these issues both as legal matters and from the perspective of the real-world functioning of the White House and Congress. Some of the larger themes we will explore include the growth of presidential powers over time and how presidential power should be understood in an era of highly polarized political parties. Class participation is expected. The final evaluation will be based on that plus an in-class exam that will likely take the form of a long essay on a major issue covered during the semester.

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Publications

  • The Unraveling: Reflections on Politics Without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024)
  • After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (2020) (with Jack Goldsmith)
  • "The National Security Lawyer, In Crisis: When The “Best View” of the Law May Not Be The Best View," 31 Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 175 (2018)
  • "The Right to Do Politics and Not Just to Speak," Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy (2013)
  • "Not Just a Private Matter: The Purposes of Author, Article Disclosure in an Expanded Regulatory System," Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy (2007)
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Education

  • JD, University of Virginia School of Law, 1976
  • BA, Harvard University, magna cum laude, 1973

Honors and Activities

  • Board Member, National Advisory Board of Journal of Law and Politics, 2014
  • "America's Leading Political Law Lawyers", Listed in Chambers USA, 2009
  • Burton Award for Legal Achievement for Legal Writing., Library of Congress, 2000

Ideas from NYU Law

Changing the Debate Magazine Feature Artwork

Changing the Debate

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