Biography

Kevin Cope’s research uses empirical, comparative, and formal theoretical methods to explore issues related to law and political economy. Substantively, he is interested in political-legal decision-making, immigration, human and civil rights, and judicial ideology. Cope is a fellow of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies and a co-editor of the inaugural Oxford University Handbook on Comparative Immigration Law. He has served as a visiting professor at the Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II).

Cope’s work is published or forthcoming in journals such as the California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Journal of Legal Studies, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Political Analysis, Political Science Research and Methods, American Journal of Comparative Law, and American Journal of International Law.

His short articles have appeared in The Atlantic, FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post Monkey Cage, and Slate. Cope has been interviewed about his research on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and on local radio and television stations.

Before joining the Law School faculty in 2019, Cope served as a judicial clerk to judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and two federal trial courts. He also practiced government enforcement litigation law in Washington, D.C., with Skadden, Arps. In law school, he served as an editor of the Northwestern University Law Review.