Professor Payvand Ahdout of the University of Virginia School of Law has won an award from the Association of American Law Schools for her article on what happens when federal courts avoid separation-of-powers questions.
The AALS Section on Federal Courts named “Separation-of-Powers Avoidance” the best article by an untenured faculty member for 2024. Published in the Yale Law Journal, the article looks at how federal appellate courts in recent years have gone to great lengths to avoid compelling coordinate branch officials to act in cases in which Congress and the executive branch are in conflict. That avoidance distorts legal meaning and creates vacuums that will ultimately be filled by someone other than a judge, Ahdout argues.
This year’s winners will be recognized during an awards ceremony at the AALS annual meeting on Jan. 4.
Ahdout previously discussed her paper in an episode of the Law School podcast “Common Law,” and the paper was highlighted in a UVA Lawyer article on how federal courts are shaping democracy. Her co-taught course Congress, Oversight and the Separation of Powers, which explored the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, examined some real-life examples discussed in her paper.
Ahdout’s research focuses on the structures that undergird the government institutions that are most often before federal courts. Her work incorporates multiple legal disciplines, including constitutional law, civil procedure, and criminal law and procedure.
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