Judith Resnik

Judith Resnik is an American legal scholar and the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where she is also the founding director of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law. She is known for her scholarship on civil procedure, federal courts, federalism, gender and law, and the criminal justice system, particularly prisons and punishment.

Education and early career Resnik received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College in 1972 and her J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1975, where she was a Hays Civil Liberties Fellow.

Resnik began her teaching career in 1976 as a clinical lecturer at Yale Law School, where she taught classes on post-conviction remedies and worked with law students representing inmates at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

Academic career

Yale Law School In 1997, Resnik joined Yale Law School as the first Arthur Liman Professor of Law, a position she continues to hold. She teaches courses on federalism, procedure, courts, prisons, equality, and citizenship. The article documented how judges increasingly engaged in pretrial conferences, settlement negotiations, and informal dispute resolution, raising concerns about judicial impartiality, due process, and the erosion of public adjudication.

The article has been widely cited in legal scholarship and judicial opinions. In November 2022, Yale Law School hosted a conference to mark the 40th anniversary of its publication, featuring panels on contemporary challenges in civil procedure and concluding with a conversation between Resnik and Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Prison reform and punishment Resnik has conducted extensive research on prisons, punishment, and the criminal justice system. Her book Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy, published by the University of Chicago Press in fall 2025, examines the history of punishment inside prisons and asks whether prisons can escape their historical connections to plantations and concentration camps.

The book traces constitutional challenges to prison conditions, including a 1960s case in Arkansas where prisoners challenged the practice of whipping. It documents the development of international standards for prisoner treatment, beginning with rules adopted by the League of Nations in 1934, and explores the impact of World War II, the United Nations, and the Civil Rights Movement on prison reform efforts.

Other scholarship Resnik has written extensively on:

Federal courts and civil procedure: Her scholarship examines the role of federal courts, jurisdictional issues, class actions, arbitration, and access to justice. Federalism and sovereignty: Research on the relationships among federal, state, and tribal courts, and the nature of federalism in the United States. The center supports:

One-year post-graduate fellowships for Yale Law School graduates to work in public interest law Summer fellowships for undergraduate students from Barnard College, Brown University, Bryn Mawr College, Harvard University, Morehouse College, Princeton University, Spelman College, Stanford University, and Yale Annual seminars on topics such as criminal justice reform, racial justice, immigration rights, and prison abolition Research and reports on criminal justice issues

As of summer 2025, more than 200 Yale Law School graduates have held Liman fellowships. She also argued a 1987 case concerning the admission of women to the Rotary Club. Member, American Philosophical Society (2002), where she delivered the Henry LaBarre Jayne Lecture in 2005 Honorary Doctorate of Laws, University College London (2018) Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, American Bar Association Commission on Women (1998) "Lawyerless Litigants, Filing Fees, Transaction Costs, and the Federal Courts" (co-authored), Northwestern Law Review (2024) "Seeing 'the Courts:' Managerial Judges, Empty Courtrooms, Chaotic Courthouses, and Judicial Legitimacy from the 1980s to the 2020s," Review of Litigation (2024) "Managerial Judges," Harvard Law Review 96 (1982): 374–448