Merritt McAlister
Interim Dean
Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law
Professor of Law
Email:
mcalister@law.ufl.edu
Phone:
(352) 273-0603
Expertise
Constitutional Law • Court Rules and Procedures • Federal Civil Procedure • Federal Clerkships • Federal Courts • Judicial Administration •
About
Professor Merritt McAlister teaches and writes in the areas of federal courts, judicial decisionmaking, constitutional law, and court administration. Her scholarship focuses on issues of institutional design in the federal appellate courts. McAlister’s work has been published in or is forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, and the Northwestern University Law Review, among others. Her 2020 article, “Downright Indifference”: Examining Unpublished Decisions in the Federal Courts of Appeals, received the annual prize from the AALS Federal Courts Section for the best paper on federal courts by an untenured professor. She currently serves as the Chair of the AALS Section on Federal Courts.
Prior to joining the University of Florida law faculty, Professor McAlister was a partner in the national appellate practice group of King & Spalding. While in private practice, she was elected to the American Law Institute, named a Georgia Super Lawyer, and recognized for her pro bono work on civil rights issues.
Professor McAlister clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She received her bachelor’s degree in English and Women and Gender Studies, magna cum laude, from Rice University and her law degree summa cum laude from the University of Georgia School of Law, where she served as Executive Articles Editor of the Georgia Law Review.
Education
J.D., University of Georgia School of Law
B.A., Rice University
Courses
- Federal Courts
- Constitutional Law
- Federal Habeas Corpus
- Judicial Decisionmaking Seminar
Publications
- White-Collar Courts , 76 Vand. L. Rev. 1155 (2023) [SSRN]
- Bottom-Rung Appeals, 91 Fordham L. Rev. 1355 (2023) [SSRN]
- Rebuilding the Federal Circuit Courts, 116 Nw. U.L. Rev. 1137 (2022) [SSRN]
- Missing Decisions, 169 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1101 (2021) [SSRN]
- “Downright Indifference”: Examining Unpublished Decisions in the Federal Courts of Appeals, 118 Mich. L. Rev. 533 (2020) [SSRN]
- Measuring How Stock Ownership Affects Which Judges (and Justices) Hear Cases, 103 Geo. L.J. 1163 (2015) (with James M. Anderson and Eric Helland) [SSRN]
- Note, The Swift, Silent Sword Hiding in the (Defense) Attorney’s Arsenal: The Efficacy of Georgia’s New Offer of Judgment Provision as Procedural Tort Reform, 40 Ga. L. Rev. 995 (2006)