Tonja Jacobi

Professor of Law

Phone: (312) 503-1458
E-mail: t-jacobi@law.northwestern.edu

Working Papers | Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Related Links: web page

Tonja Jacobi is a Professor of Law, having joined Northwestern Law School in 2004. Jacobi earned her PhD in political science from Stanford University, where she wrote her dissertation on separation of powers constraints on the judiciary. She also holds a Masters from the University of California, Berkeley and a law degree from the Australian National University. Her areas of interest include judicial politics, game theory, American governmental institutions and constitutional law. Her current projects include an empirical assessment of the ideological nature of intellectual property cases, a survey of public choice as applied to the judiciary, and a formal model of judicial-congressional interactions in constitutional issues.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Judicial Politics
Game Theory
American Democracy

Constitutional Law
Legislation

COURSES

PUBLICATIONS

Representative Publications

The Judicial Signalling Game: How Judges Strategically Shape Their Dockets, SUPREME COURT ECONOMIC REVIEW, forthcoming 2007
The Dissent Becomes the Majority: Using Federalism to Transform Coalitions in the US Supreme Court (with Vanessa Baird)
The Impact of Positive Political Theory on Old Questions of Constitutional Law and the Separation of Powers, Northwestern University Law Review Centenary Edition, forthcoming 2006

Recent Publications

The Role of Politics and Economics in Explaining Variation in Litigation Rates in the U.S. States , JOURNAL OF LEGAL STUDIES , 2009
The Judicial Signaling Game: How Judges Strategically Shape Their Dockets, SUPREME COURT ECONOMIC REVIEW , 2008
Acknowledging Guilt: Forcing Self-Identification in Post-Conviction DNA Testing , NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW, 2008
Super Medians, STANFORD LAW REVIEW , 2008
How Massachusetts Got Gay Marriage: The Intersection of Popular Opinion, Legislative Action, and Judicial Power , JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY LEGAL ISSUES, 2006

View more publications by Tonja Jacobi

JOINT APPOINTMENTS

Faculty, Kellogg School of Management, Department of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences

EDUCATION

BA with honors, LLB with honors, Australian National University
MA, University of California Berkeley
PhD, Stanford University

PRIOR APPOINTMENTS

Lecturer, 2003, Teaching Assistant, 2001-2002, Stanford University
Research Assistant, University of California, Berkeley, 2000
Teaching Assistant, University of Canberra Law School, fall 1999