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E-Mail:
mgc3r@virginia.edu


Phone:
(434) 243-2385

Office: WB353

Secretary/Assistant:
Pamela Messina


    Michael G. Collins

    Joseph M. Hartfield Professor of Law
    Roy L. and Rosamond Woodruff Morgan Professor of Law

    J.D., Harvard Law School, 1978
    M.A., Stanford University, 1975
    B.A., Pomona College, 1972

    Michael Collins joined the Law School as Joseph M. Hartfield Professor of Law in 2007. Collins previously taught at Tulane Law School, where he was the Robert A. Ainsworth Professor of Law. He currently teaches federal courts, civil procedure, evidence and conflict of laws.

    Prior to attending law school, he earned a graduate degree in classical languages and literature at Stanford University. After law school, he practiced commercial and employment law in Los Angeles, practiced civil rights law in New Orleans, and was a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. In spring 2005 and 2006 he taught Evidence at the University of Virginia as a visiting professor. He has also taught at Boston University, George Washington University, Ohio State and the University of Richmond. While at Tulane, he was a three-time recipient of the law school's distinguished teaching award.

    Collins’ research interests lie in the areas of federal courts, procedure and legal history. His recent works include a historical essay on the Rules of Decision Act, and a study of the treatment of jurisdictional defects in the federal courts. His writings have appeared in the California, Columbia, Georgetown and Virginia law reviews. He has also co-authored casebooks on federal jurisdiction and on civil procedure, and he has published a handbook on constitutional tort litigation.


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    Books:

    The Law of Civil Procedure--Cases and Materials (with Joel Friedman & Jonathan Landers) (Thomson/West, 2d ed. 2006).

    Section 1983 Litigation in a Nutshell (West 1997; Thomson/West, 3d ed. 2006).

    Federal Courts—Theory and Practice (with R. Clinton & R. Matasar) (Aspen/Little, Brown & Co. 1996) (Updates 1997-2002).

    Articles and Essays:

    "M‘Culloch and the Turned Comma," 12 Green Bag 2d 265 (2009).

    "Edward Tarble's Case" (with A. Woolhandler), in Federal Courts' Stories (V. Jackson & J. Resnick, eds.) (2009) (forthcoming).

    "Jurisdictional Exceptionalism," 93 Va. L. Rev. 1829 (2007).

    “Justice Iredell, Choice of Law, and the Constitution: A Neglected Encounter,” 23 Const. Comment. 163 (2006).

    "The Federal Courts, the First Congress, and the Non-Settlement of 1789," 91 Va. L. Rev. 1515 (2005).

    "Symposium: Judicial Independence and the Scope of Article III--A View from The Federalist," 38 U. Rich. L. Rev. 675 (2004).

    "October Term, 1896--Embracing Due Process," 46 Am. J. Legal Hist. 71 (2003).

    "The Diversity Theory of the Alien Tort Statute," 42 Va. J. Int'l L. 649 (2002).

    "The Article III Jury" (with A. Woolhandler), 87 Va. L. Rev. 587 (2001).

    "Before Lochner – Diversity Jurisdiction and the Development of General Constitutional Law," 74 Tul. L. Rev. 1263 (2000).

    "Judicial Federalism and the Administrative States," 87 Cal. L. Rev. 613 (1999).

    "Justice Bradley's Civil Rights Odyssey Revisited," 70 Tul. L. Rev. 1979 (1996).

    "Article III Cases, State Court Duties, and the Madisonian Compromise," 1995 Wis. L. Rev. 39 (1995).

    "State Standing" (with A. Woolhandler), 81 Va. L. Rev. 387 (1994).

    "Whose Federalism?", 9 Const. Comm. 75 (1992).

    "Symposium: 'Economic Rights,' Implied Constitutional Actions, and the Scope of Sect. 1983," 77 Geo. L.J. 1493 (1990).

    "The Conspiracy Theory of the Eleventh Amendment," 88 Colum. L. Rev. 212 (1988).

    "The Right to Avoid Trial: Justifying Federal Court Intervention into Ongoing State Court Proceedings," 66 N.C. L. Rev. 49 (1987).

    "The Unhappy History of Federal Question Removal," 71 Iowa L. Rev. 717 (1986).

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