Kevin Tobia is an Associate Professor of Law and Philosophy (by courtesy) at Georgetown, where he teaches Legislation, Torts, the Legal Justice Seminar, and Legal Philosophy. He has also taught Philosophy of Law at the University of Oxford, Faculty of Philosophy, and co-taught Legal Interpretation and Contract Design.
Professor Tobia’s research addresses topics in legal interpretation and jurisprudence and has been published in the Columbia Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review,University of Pennsylvania Law Review,Yale Law Journal, and peer-reviewed journals of philosophy and science, including Analysis,Cognition,Cognitive Science, andProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. His research has been cited in federal district and circuit courts and casebooks in legislation and interpretation. He has spoken to academic, public, and professional audiences in the United States and internationally, including Judicial Conferences and Education Institutes for the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Tobia received a B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in Philosophy, Mathematics, and Cognitive Science from Rutgers University; a B.Phil. (M.A.) with distinction from Oxford as an Ertegun Scholar in the Humanities; and a J.D. and Ph.D. in philosophy with distinction from Yale. He was an Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal, Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, Coker Teaching Fellow in Torts, and Prize Teaching Fellow in Philosophy. Professor Tobia’s scholarship has been awarded the Yale Law School Felix S. Cohen prize for legal philosophy and the AALS Section on Jurisprudence “Future Promise Award” for scholarship in legal philosophy.
Scholarship
Featured Scholarship
William N. Eskridge, Jr., Brian G. Slocum & Kevin Tobia, Textualism’s Defining Moment, 123 Colum. L. Rev. 1611-1697 (2023). [WWW] [W] [L] [SSRN]
Brian Slocum & Kevin Tobia, The Linguistic and Substantive Canons, 137 Harv. L. Rev. F. 70-108 (2023). [WWW] [W] [L] [SSRN]
Kevin Tobia, Methodology and Innovation in Jurisprudence, 123 Colum. L. Rev. 2483- 2515 (2023)(reviewing Julie Dickson, Elucidating Law (Oxford University Press 2022)). [WWW] [W] [L] [SSRN]
Eric Martínez & Kevin Tobia, What Do Law Professors Believe About Law and the Legal Academy?, 112 Geo. L.J. 111-189 (2023). [W] [L] [SSRN]
Kevin Tobia, Brian Slocum & Victoria Nourse, Ordinary Meaning and Ordinary People, 171 U. Pa. L. Rev. 365-458 (2023). [WWW] [Gtown Law] [HEIN] [W] [L] [SSRN]
Ivar R. Hannikainena, Kevin Tobia, Guilherme da F. C. F. de Almeida et al., Coordination and Expertise Foster Legal Textualism, 119 Proc. Nat’l Acad. Sci., Oct. 25, 2022, at e2206531119. [WWW] [SSRN]
Kevin Tobia, Experimental Jurisprudence, 89 U. Chi. L. Rev. 735-802 (2022).
