Tonja Jacobi
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 , 38 JOURNAL OF LEGAL STUDIES 205-233, 2009
- Judicial Agenda Setting through Signaling and Strategic Litigant Responses, 29 JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY 215-239 , 2009
- Ideology and Exceptionalism in Intellectual Property: An Empirical Study, 97 CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW 801-856 , 2009
- Competing Models of Judicial Coalition Formation and Case Outcome Determination , 1 JOURNAL OF LEGAL ANALYSIS 411-458, 2009
- Taking the Measure of Ideology: Empirically Measuring Supreme Court Cases , 98 GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL 1-75 , 2009
JOINT APPOINTMENTS
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

