Susan Low Bloch
Professor of Law
B.A., Smith; M.A., Ph.C., J.D., University of Michigan
Areas of Expertise:
Communications Law, Constitutional Law, Courts and Judges
Professor Susan Low Bloch joined the Georgetown Law Center faculty in 1982. She teaches Constitutional Law I and II, Federal Courts, Communications Law, and a seminar...
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Professor Susan Low Bloch joined the Georgetown Law Center faculty in 1982. She teaches Constitutional Law I and II, Federal Courts, Communications Law, and a seminar on the Supreme Court. Professor Bloch is the author of numerous articles in the areas of constitutional and administrative law and is the co-author of Inside the Supreme Court: The Institution and Its Procedures, published by West Publishing Company in 2008, and Supreme Court Politics: The Institution and Its Procedures, published by West Publishing Company in 1994. She has given lectures and interviews on a variety of topics, including impeachment, presidential immunity, historical overviews of the Supreme Court, the role of the Constitution in this country and its relevance for emerging democracies. In November 1998, she testified before the House Judiciary Committee as one of 19 constitutional law experts on what is an impeachable offense. She also testified before the Senate on whether the President can be indicted and tried while in office. She has participated in numerous international symposia organized by the Gruter Institute, giving papers on a variety of comparative law issues. Widely quoted in the media, Professor Bloch has appeared on numerous television and radio programs on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, NPR, CBC, and USAID to discuss various topics including the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, impeachment, and the independent counsel statute as well as pertinent constitutional issues of the moment. Previously she was one of the expert panelists on "Inside DC with Fred Graham," a weekly Court TV program that examined the latest developments in the law. In addition to teaching, Professor Bloch is a member of the American Law Institute, participant on the Twentieth Century Fund Project on the Judiciary, and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Locally, she has been a commissioner on the Judicial Nominating Committee for the District of Columbia Courts and has worked with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, serving on the Committee to Write the Oral History of the Circuit and on numerous committees for the D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference. In addition, she has been an editorial advisor to "Justice," the Journal of the Department of Justice. Professor Bloch is also active in the D.C. Bar, serving on the Ethics Committee, the Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee, the Judicial Evaluation Committee, the Steering Committee of D.C. Bar Section for Courts, Lawyers, and the Administration of Justice, the Committee to Celebrate the Bicentennial of the Constitution, and the Administrative Law Section nominating committee. She is also on the Board of the Institute for Public Representation and an advisor to students in the Public Interest Law Scholars Program at Georgetown. Before joining the Law Center, Professor Bloch served as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall and for Judge Spottswood Robinson. She also practiced law at Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering for about four years. Susan Bloch did her legal training at the University of Michigan Law School, where she graduated summa cum laude. Before that, she received graduate degrees in mathematics and computer science from the University of Michigan and a B.A. with distinction from Smith College. She is married to Richard Bloch and is the proud mother of two children, Rebecca and Michael, both of whom are public defenders.
Recent Scholarship
Forthcoming Works and Works in Progress
- Susan Low Bloch & Vicki C. Jackson, Federalism: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution (Praeger forthcoming).
Contributions to Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals
- Susan Low Bloch, United States: Review of Supreme Court's 2011 October Term, 2012 Pub. L. 798-809. [W]
- Susan Low Bloch, United States of America--Supreme Court Term 2010 Overview--Major Themes: Free Speech and Hostility to Multi-Litigant Cases--After Period or Personnel Change Court Settles in for Period of Stability, 2011 Pub. L. 835. [W]
- Susan Low Bloch, Celebrating Thurgood Marshall: The Prophetic Dissenter, 52 How. L.J. 617-636 (2009). [HEIN] [L] [W]
Book Chapters and Collected Works
- Susan Low Bloch, Assessing the Impeachment of President Clinton from a Post-9/11 Perspective, in The Clinton Presidency and the Constitutional System 190-220 (Rosanna Perotti ed., College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press 2012). [SSRN] [Gtown Law] [BOOK]
All Scholarship 2000 - Present
Forthcoming Works and Works in Progress
- Susan Low Bloch & Vicki C. Jackson, Federalism: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution (Praeger forthcoming).
- Susan Low Bloch, An Update on the Report Card of the Impeachment of President Clinton: The View Post 9/11, in Impeachment (Neil Kinkopf & Michael Gerhardt eds., forthcoming).
Books
- Susan Low Bloch, Vicki C. Jackson & Thomas G. Krattenmaker, Inside the Supreme Court: The Institution and its Procedures (St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West 2d ed. 2008). [BOOK]
Contributions to Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals
- Susan Low Bloch, United States: Review of Supreme Court's 2011 October Term, 2012 Pub. L. 798-809. [W]
- Susan Low Bloch, United States of America--Supreme Court Term 2010 Overview--Major Themes: Free Speech and Hostility to Multi-Litigant Cases--After Period or Personnel Change Court Settles in for Period of Stability, 2011 Pub. L. 835. [W]
- Susan Low Bloch, Celebrating Thurgood Marshall: The Prophetic Dissenter, 52 How. L.J. 617-636 (2009). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Susan Low Bloch, Impeachment: Advice and Dissent, 54 Duke L.J. 1661-1664 (2005). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Susan Low Bloch, Looking Ahead: The Future of Affirmative Action, 52 Am. U. L. Rev. 1507-1520 (2003). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Susan Low Bloch & Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Federal Courts of the District of Columbia, 90 Geo. L.J. 549-605 (2002). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Susan Low Bloch, The Marbury Mystery: Why Did William Marbury Sue in the Supreme Court?, 18 Const. Comment. 607-627 (2001). [HEIN] [L] [W] [SSRN] [Gtown Law]
- Susan Low Bloch, A Report Card on the Impeachment: Judging the Institutions that Judged President Clinton, 63 Law & Contemp. Probs. 143-167 (2000). [HEIN] [L] [W] [SSRN] [Gtown Law]
Book Chapters and Collected Works
- Susan Low Bloch, Assessing the Impeachment of President Clinton from a Post-9/11 Perspective, in The Clinton Presidency and the Constitutional System 190-220 (Rosanna Perotti ed., College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press 2012). [SSRN] [Gtown Law] [BOOK]
- Susan Low Bloch, Marbury Redux, in Arguing Marbury v. Madison 59-64 (Mark V. Tushnet ed., Stanford, Cal.: Stanford Law and Politics 2005). [BOOK]
- Susan Low Bloch & Maeva Marcus, John Marshall's Selective Use of History in Marbury v. Madison, in The Supreme Court in and of the Stream of Power 251-288 (Kermit L. Hall ed., New York: Garland 2000). [BOOK]
Selected Contributions to Other Publications
- Susan Low Bloch, The Marbury Mystery, 13 Experience 24-37 (2003). [HEIN] [W]
- Susan Low Bloch, Affirmative Action: The Aftermath of the University of Michigan Cases, Fed. Law., Oct. 2003, at 22-29. [HEIN] [W]
- Susan Low Bloch, Looking Ahead: The Future of Affirmative Action After Grutter and Gratz, Jurist, Sept. 5, 2003. [WWW]
- Susan Low Bloch, Abortion Controversy Continues: Supreme Court Reviews Partial Birth Abortions Statute, The Law.com (Apr. 21, 2000). [WWW]
- Susan Low Bloch, The Role of the United States Supreme Court in Our Constitutional System, Konrad Adenauer Inst. Proceedings (2000).
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