Justin Van Orsdol is a visiting assistant professor of law and Donald Gaines Murray Fellow. He teaches Legal Profession and in the first-year Lawyering Program. Professor Van Orsdol’s research focuses on judicial behavior and procedure, executive power, and civil rights enforcement. His work centers on how legal institutions constrain public power when ordinary safeguards fail.
Professor Van Orsdol’s scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in the Arkansas Law Review, Buffalo Law Review, Florida Law Review Forum, Georgia Law Review, Louisville Law Review, Nebraska Law Review, Pittsburgh Law Review, Rutgers Law Review, Washington & Lee Law Review Online, William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, Wisconsin Law Review, and Tulane Law Review.
Prior to joining Maryland Carey Law, Professor Van Orsdol was an associate at King & Spalding in Atlanta, Georgia, where his practice focused on high‑stakes commercial litigation, including class actions, breach of contract cases, and business disputes. Before that, he clerked for Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, the senior judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals, and Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Professor Van Orsdol graduated magna cum laude from the University of Georgia School of Law where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and Order of Barristers. He received his MA in administration from California State University, Bakersfield, and he earned his BS in business administration, summa cum laude, from California State University, Bakersfield.