Zoe Robinson
Biography
Professor Robinson joined the faculty of Marquette University Law School in 2024. Her primary scholarly interests are in the fields of constitutional law (specifically constitutional rights), constitutional design, judicial politics, and empirical legal studies. Her scholarship has appeared in Georgetown Law Journal, Minnesota Law Review, Cornell Law Review, American Journal of Comparative Law, Journal of Law and Courts, Emory Law Journal, and Iowa Law Review, amongst others. Her work has been cited and discussed in several media outlets, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, CNN, and Slate.
Prior to joining the Marquette Law School faculty, Professor Robinson was a Professor at the Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences, where she held numerous grants supporting the study of comparative judicial behavior. From 2009 to 2020, Professor Robinson was a Professor of Law at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, where she taught Constitutional Law, First Amendment, and Torts. Before joining DePaul, she clerked for Judge Diane P. Wood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Justice Margaret A. Stone on the Federal Court of Australia.
Professor Robinson holds a JD (with High Honors and Order of the Coif) and a JSD from the University of Chicago Law School, as well as an LLB (with First Class Honors and the University Medal), and a BA from the Australian National University, and a BMus from Griffith University.
Articles
Ideology and Agenda Setting in the High Court of Australia with Russell Smyth, Patrick Leslie, and Tonja Jacobi) __ Journal of Empirical Legal Studies __ (forthcoming 2026)
Can Speech Policy Protect Public Health? (with Irina D. Manta and Cassandra Burke Robertson) 2026 Utah Law Review 321 (2026)
Lower Court Disagreements as Cues for Agenda Setting in the High Court of Australia (with Russell Smyth, Patrick Leslie, and Tonja Jacobi) __ Journal of Law and Courts 1 (2026)
Supporting Comparative Studies of Judicial Behavior: Introducing the Australian High Court Database with Russell Smyth, Patrick Leslie, and Tonja Jacobi) Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis 1 (2026)
Influencer Speech-Torts (with Leah Fowler and Max Helveston) 113 Georgetown Law Journal 415 (2025)
Public Health Policy as Public Choice Failure with (Irina D. Manta and Cassandra Burke Robertson) 25 Houston Journal of Health Law & Policy 8 (invited symposium) (2025)
Institutional Design and the Predictability of Judicial Interruptions at Oral Argument (with Tonja Jacobi and Patrick Leslie) 12 Journal of Law and Courts 444 (2024)
Comparative Exceptionalism? Strategy and Ideology in the High Court of Australia (with Tonja Jacobi and Patrick Leslie) 71 American Journal of Comparative Law 568 (2024) [SSRN]
The Law Enforcement Lobby (with Stephen Rushin) 107 Minnesota Law Review 1965 (2023)
State Constitutionalism and Excessive Punishment (with Rob Smith and Emily Hughes) 108 Iowa Law Review 537 (2023)
Judicial Ideology in the Absence of Rights (with Patrick Leslie and Jill Sheppard), 10 Journal of Law and Courts 239 (2022)
Personal or Political Loyalty? Judicial Loyalty and Justice Appointments in the High Court of Australia (with Patrick Leslie and Russell Smyth) 56 Australian Journal of Political Science 445 (2021)
Institutional Legitimacy and Symbols of Judicial Authority: A Survey Experiment 48 Federal Law Review 382 (2020) (with Russell Smyth and Ingrid Nielsen)
Querying the Gender Dynamics of Interruptions at Australian Oral Argument, 4 University of New South Wales Law Review Forum 1 (2020) (with Tonja Jacobi and Patrick Leslie) (invited contribution)
Religious Majoritarianism and the First Amendment, in Cambridge Companion to the First Amendment and Religious Liberty (Michael Breidenbach & Owen Anderson, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2019)
Constitutional Liberty and the Progression of Punishment, 103 Cornell Law Review 413 (2017) (with Robert J. Smith)
What Does Innocence Have to do With Cruel and Unusual Punishment? (with Robert J. Smith & G. Ben Cohen), in Wrongful Convictions and the DNA Revolution: Twenty-Five Years of Freeing the Innocent (Daniel Medwed, ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
Constitutional Personhood, 84 George Washington Law Review 605 (2016)
Hosanna-Tabor After Hobby Lobby, in The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty: Hobby Lobby and the New Law of Religion in America (Zoë Robinson, Micah Schwartzman & Chad Flanders, eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Introduction: The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty (with Micah Schwartzman & Chad Flanders), in The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty (Zoë Robinson, Micah Schwartzman & Chad Flanders, eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Implicit White Favoritism in the Criminal Justice System, 66 Alabama Law Review 871 (2015) (with Robert J. Smith & Justin D. Levinson)
Lobbying in the Shadows: Religious Interest Groups in the Legislative Process, 64 Emory Law Journal 101 (2015)
The Contraception Mandate and the Forgotten Constitutional Question, 2014 Wisconsin Law Review 749 (2014)
The Failure of Mitigation, 65 Hastings Law Journal 1221 (2014) (with Robert J. Smith & Sophie Cull)
What is a “Religious Institution”? 55 Boston College Law Review 181 (2014)
A Comparative Analysis of the Doctrinal Consequences of Interpretive Disagreement for Implied Constitutional Rights, 11 Washington University Global Studies Law Review 93 (2012)
Rationalizing Religious Exemptions: A Legislative Process Theory of Statutory Exemptions for Religion, 20 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 133 (2011)
Comparative Judicial Attitudinalism: A Preliminary Study of Judicial Choices in Westminster Legal Systems, 2011 University of Chicago Legal Forum 209 (2011)
Books
The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty (with Micah Schwartzman & Chad Flanders, eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Law and Religion in Theoretical and Historical Context (with Peter Cane and Carolyn Evans, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2008)