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
Constitutional Law
Federal Courts
Kimberly Wehle 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 an ABC legal contributor and an opinion contributor to The Atlantic, Politico, The Bulwark and The Hill. Previously, she was a contributor for BBC World News and BBC World News America on PBS, and 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 received the law school's Faculty Award for Public Discourse Scholarship in 2021.
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
How the Pardon Power Works and Why (Woodhall Press, forthcoming September 3, 2024)
How to Think Like a Lawyer -- and Why: A Common Sense Guide to Everyday Dilemmas (Harper Collins, 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
The Ninth Amendment Post-Dobbs: Could Federalism Swallow Unenumerated Rights? , 83 Md. L. Rev. 867 (2024)
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 American University Washington College of Law Legislative and Policy Brief 2 (Spring 2020).
Defining Lawmaking Power, 51 Wake Forest L. Rev. 811 (2016).
Public Laws and Private Lawmakers, 93 Wash. L. Rev. 615 (2016).
Outsourcing, Data Insourcing, and the Irrelevant Constitution, 49 Ga. L. Rev. 607 (2015).
Anonymity, Faceprints, and the Constitution, 21 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 409 (2014).
"We the People," Constitutional Accountability, and Outsourcing Government , 88 Ind. L. J. 1347 (2013).
Government by Contract and the Structural Constitution, 87 Notre Dame L. Rev. 491 (2011).
Presidential Control of the Elite "Non-Agency", 88 N.C. L. Rev. 71 (December 2009).
Justiciable Generalized Grievances, 68 Md. L. Rev. 1 (Fall 2008).
What's Left Standing? FECA Citizen Suits and the Battle for Judicial Review, 55 Kan. L. Rev. 677 (April 2007).