Joseph Landau

Joseph Landau is the 12th dean of Fordham Law School and the Paul Fuller Professor of Law. He previously served as associate dean for academic affairs from 2021 to 2024. Landau joined the faculty in 2010 as associate professor of law and has served as professor of law since 2016. He writes at the intersection of constitutional law and civil procedure, and he has long taught both of those subjects to first-year students at Fordham. He received the Fordham Law Dean’s Distinguished Research Award for 2020-2021 and Fordham Law’s Teacher of the Year Award in 2012-2013 and again in 2019-2020. In 2012, he was named one of the Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40 by the National LGBT Bar Association.

Landau graduated from Yale Law School in 2002 and clerked for the Hon. David Trager of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and the Hon. Betty Binns Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to joining the Fordham faculty, he was an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, where in addition to specializing in securities litigation he co-directed the Firm’s pro bono practice group in immigration and international human rights (including Guantánamo Bay litigation). From 2010 to 2013, he was Board Chairman of Immigration Equality and the Immigration Equality Action Fund. Prior to law school, Professor Landau was the Assistant Managing Editor at The New Republic magazine in Washington, D.C.

The New York Times op-ed
The Hill op-ed
NBC News 4 New York
The New Republic
The Stranger

Education

• Duke University, BA, 1995
• Yale Law School, JD, 2002

Representative Publications

Scholarly Publications

• Rescinding Rights, 106 Minnesota Law Review 1681 (2022)
• Broken Records: Reconceptualizing Rational Basis Review to Address “Alternative Facts” in the Legislative Process, 73 Vanderbilt Law Review 425 (2020)
• Process Scrutiny: Motivational Inquiry and Constitutional Rights, 119 Columbia Law Review 2147 (2019)
• New Majoritarian Constitutionalism, 103 Iowa Law Review 1033 (2018)
• Bureaucratic Administration: Experimentation and Immigration Law, 65 Duke Law Journal 1173-1240 (2016)
• Roberts, Kennedy, and the Subtle Differences That Matter In Obergefell, 84 Fordham Law Review 101 (2015)
• Due Process and the Non-Citizen: A Revolution Reconsidered, 47 University of Connecticut Law Review 879 (2015)
• Presidential Constitutionalism and Civil Rights, 55 William & Mary Law Review 1719 (2014)
• Chevron Meets Youngstown: National Security and the Administrative State, 92 Boston University Law Review 1917 (2012)
• DOMA and Presidential Discretion: Interpreting and Enforcing Federal Law, 81 Fordham Law Review 619 (2012)
• Symposium Foreword to The Defense of Marriage Act: Law, Policy, and the Future of Marriage, 81 Fordham Law Review 537 (2012)
• Muscular Procedure: Conditional Deference in the Executive Detention Cases, 84 Washington Law Review 661 (2009)
• "Soft Immutability" and "Imputed Gay Identity": Recent Developments in Transgender and Sexual Orientation-Based Asylum Law, 32 Fordham Urban Law Journal 237 (2005)
• Oakeshott's Politics of Faith and Politics of Skepticism (Book Review), The Wilson Quarterly, 2/1996

Additional Articles

• Opinion, Law Schools Must Embrace AI, New York Law Journal, July 12, 2023, at 2 (with Ron Lazebnik)
• Opinion, Law Schools Must Implement Meaningful Adjustments, New York Law Journal Online, June 29, 2021 (with Matthew Diller)
• Evolving Standards of Dual Citizenship, Lawfare, Dec. 6, 2016
• Why Chief Justice John Roberts Might Support Gay Marriage, The New York Times, April 27, 2015
• Kids, Gay Marriage and the Supreme Court, The Hill, April 24, 2015
• The Justices' Most Pressing Questions about the Defense of Marriage Act, The Stranger, March 27, 2013
• The Tough Questions in the Supreme Court's Prop. 8 Case, and What They Mean, The Stranger, March 26, 2013
• The DOMA Ripple Effect, The New Republic, March 11 2011
• Indefinite Detention Center, The New Republic, Nov. 13, 2008
• Reversal of Fortune, The New Republic, Mar. 10, 2004
• Judge Advocates, The New Republic, Feb. 25, 2004
• Misjudged, The New Republic, Feb. 9, 2004
• Ripple Effect, The New Republic, June 23, 2003 (cited in Brest et al., Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking 1476 (5th ed. 2006))
• Marriage as Integration, in Same Sex Marriage: Pro and Con (Andrew Sullivan ed., 1997)