Professor of Law
John and Frances Angelos Law Center, Room 1014
Media Contact: Christine Stutz
410.837.5648
Cell: 410.961.6467
Administrative Assistant: Latosha Davis
John and Frances Angelos Law Center, Room 1006
Education
J.D., cum laude, University of Michigan Law School
B.A., magna cum laude, Cornell University
Areas of Expertise
Administrative Law
Civil Procedure
Federal Courts
Kimberly Wehle (formerly Kimberly N. Brown) joined the law school after several years of teaching as an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and a Visiting Professor at the George Washington University Law School. She teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, federal courts and civil procedure. She is particularly interested in separation of powers questions, as well as in the constitutional implications of structural and technological innovations in modern government.
Wehle is the author of three books that explain complex constitutional concepts for lay audiences. She is a contributor for BBC World News and BBC World News America on PBS, and an opinion contributor to The Atlantic, Politico, The Bulwark and The Hill. She was an on-air legal analyst and commentator for CBS News. In addition, she appears regularly as a guest legal analyst on constitutional topics such as separation of powers and impeachment with outlets including CNN, MSNBC, NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS NewsHour and Fox News. Her articles have also appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, and NBC News Think. She is regularly interviewed and cited by prominent print journalists on a range of newsworthy legal issues.
She hosts a show on Instagram called #SimplePolitics with Kim Wehle at @kimwehle. She also tweets @kimwehle. She is the 2020 recipient of the prestigious University of Maryland System Board of Regents Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship.
Wehle's scholarship addresses the constitutional relationship of independent agencies and private contractors to the enumerated branches of government. Her articles have appeared in the Notre Dame Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal and the North Carolina Law Review, among others, and her work is cited in a leading federal courts casebook.
Wehle was an editor of the Michigan Law Review and clerked for the Hon. Charles R. Richey of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She went on to practice, first at the Federal Trade Commission and subsequently as an Associate Independent Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Civil Division of the Office of the United States Attorney in Washington, D.C.
She has practiced before the United States Supreme Court and argued several cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Wehle is also an advisor to the nonpartisan nonprofit, Protect Democracy.
Selected Publications
Books
The Power of the Pardon (Woodhall Press, forthcoming 2023)
How to Think Like a Lawyer -- and Why: A Common Sense Guide to Everyday Dilemmas (Harper Collins, forthcoming 2022).
What You Need To Know About Voting -- and Why (Harper Collins, 2020).
How to Read the Constitution -- and Why (Harper Collins, 2019).
The Outsourced Constitution: How Government Power in Private Hands Erodes American Democracy (forthcoming Cambridge University Press).
Articles and Essays
Executive Accountability Legislation from Watergate to Trump—and Beyond , 7 U. Pa. J. L. & Pub. Affairs (2021) (with Jackson Garrity).
"Law and" the OLC’s Article II Immunity Memos, 32 Stan. L. & Pol'y Rev. 1 (2020).
"Forward," 9 Leg. & Policy Brief 2 (Spring 2020).
Defining Lawmaking Power, 51 Wake Forest Law Review 811 (2016).
Public Laws and Private Lawmakers, 93 Washington University Law Review 615 (2016).
Outsourcing, Data Insourcing, and the Irrelevant Constitution , 49 Georgia Law Review 607 (2015).
Anonymity, Faceprints, and the Constitution, 21 George Mason Law Review 409 (2014).
"We the People," Constitutional Accountability, and Outsourcing Government , 88 Indiana Law Journal 1347 (2013).
Government by Contract and the Structural Constitution, 87 Notre Dame Law Review 491 (2011).
Presidential Control of the Elite "Non-Agency", 88 North Carolina Law Review 71 (December 2009).
Justiciable Generalized Grievances, 68 Maryland Law Review 1 (Fall 2008).
What's Left Standing? FECA Citizen Suits and the Battle for Judicial Review , 55 Kansas Law Review 677 (April 2007).