Thomas B. Bennett
Associate Professor of Law
Full-time faculty
Professor Thomas B. Bennett comes to SMU Dedman School of Law from the University of Missouri, where he was Associate Professor of Law and Wall Family Fellow and enjoyed a joint appointment at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy. He joins the SMU faculty as Associate Professor of Law in fall 2024.
Professor Bennett’s research focuses on how complex civil litigation strains the relationship between state and federal courts and impacts the separation of powers. Professor Bennett’s scholarship has appeared or will appear in the NYU Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Missouri Law Review, and the Kentucky Law Journal, and has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. Before joining the University of Missouri faculty in 2020, he was a Furman Academic Fellow at NYU School of Law and spent four years in private practice litigating appeals, complex civil cases, and administrative matters. Professor Bennett is also a former law clerk to the Honorable Gerard E. Lynch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Honorable Jesse M. Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He holds a J.D. magna cum laude from NYU School of Law and a B.A. with honors from Swarthmore College.
Area of expertise
- Complex Litigation
- Civil Litigation
Education
B.A., Swarthmore CollegeJ.D., NYU School of Law
Articles
Breaking Kayfabe, 89 Missouri Law Review (forthcoming 2024)
The Wages of Hitching Wagons, 112 Kentucky Law Journal 661 (2024)
There Is No Such Thing As Circuit Law, 107 Minnesota Law Review 1681 (2023)
State Rejection of Federal Law, 97 Notre Dame Law Review 761 (2022)
The Paradox of Exclusive State-Court Jurisdiction Over Federal Claims, 105 Minnesota Law Review 1211 (2021)
Divide and Concur: Separate Opinions and Legal Change, 103 Cornell Law Review 817 (2018) (co-authored)
The Canon at the Water's Edge, 87 New York University Law Review 207 (2012)
Media
Reuters, quoted in (2024)
BBC, quoted in (2023)
Time, quoted in (2022)
Bloomberg Law, quoted in (2022)
Reuters, quoted in (2021)