Lawrence Solum

Lawrence Solum
Solum in 2017
Born	Lawrence Byard Solum 1954 (age 71–72)
Occupation	Law professor
Academic background
Education	University of California, Los Angeles (BA) Harvard University (JD)
Academic work
Discipline	Law
Institutions	Georgetown University Law Center University of Virginia School of Law
Main interests	Philosophy of law Constitutional theory

Lawrence Byard Solum (born 1954)¹ is an American legal theorist known for his work in the philosophy of law and constitutional theory. He is the William L. Matheson and Robert M. Morgenthau Distinguished Professor of Law and the Douglas D. Drysdale Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he has taught since 2020.²

Solum edits and publishes the "Legal Theory Blog", a website dedicated to highlighting new works of legal scholarship and featuring a recurring series called the "Legal Theory Lexicon", which explains key concepts and terminology in legal theory.³

He studied philosophy at the University of California Los Angeles earning highest departmental honors and went on to receive his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.²

After law school, Solum was a law clerk to Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1984 to 1985. Prior to academia, he also worked at the law firm of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore in New York City. He was previously the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center.⁴ Solum has also served as a professor of law at the University of Illinois College of Law, the University of San Diego School of Law, and Loyola Law School. ⁵

• Bennett, Robert W.; Solum, Lawrence B. (2011). Constitutional Originalism: A Debate. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801461118.

• — (1987). "On the Indeterminacy Crisis: Critiquing Critical Dogma". University of Chicago Law Review. 54 (2): 462—503. JSTOR 1599797.
• — (2004). "Procedural Justice". Southern California Law Review. 78 (1): 181—322.
• — (2010). "The Interpretation-Construction Distinction". Constitutional Commentary. 27 (1): 95—118.
• — (2013). "Originalism and Constitutional Construction". Fordham Law Review. 82 (2): 453—538.
• — (2015). "The Fixation Thesis: The Role of Historical Fact in Original Meaning". Notre Dame Law Review. 91 (1): 1—78.