Eugene Volokh

Eugene Volokh
Born	February 29, 1968 (1968-02-29) Kiev, Ukrainian SSR
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles UCLA School of Law
Occupation	Law professor, legal commentator
Known for	The Volokh Conspiracy

Eugene Volokh (Russian: Евгений Владимирович Волох Yevgeniy Vladimirovich Volokh, Ukrainian: Євге́н Володимирович Волох Yevhen Volodymyrovych Volokh; born February 29, 1968) is an American legal commentator and the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law (located on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles). He publishes the widely read weblog "The Volokh Conspiracy" and is frequently cited in the American media.

Early life, education, and teaching

Volokh was born in Kiev, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. He emigrated with his family to the United States at age seven. At age 12, he began working as a computer programmer. Three years later, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Math and Computer Science from UCLA. As a junior at UCLA, he earned $480 a week as a programmer for 20th Century Fox. During this period, his achievements were featured in an episode of OMNI: The New Frontier, a television series hosted by Peter Ustinov.^{[citation needed]}

In 1992, Volokh received a Juris Doctor degree from the UCLA School of Law. He was a law clerk for Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and later for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court. Since finishing his clerkships, he has been on the faculty for the UCLA School of Law.

Personal life

Volokh is married and has two children. His mother, Anne Volokh, founded Movieline magazine in 1985. His father, Vladimir Volokh, is a software engineer. His brother, Alexander "Sasha" Volokh is a law professor at Emory Law School and also a co-blogger at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Politics

Volokh supported former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson in the 2008 presidential election, saying Thompson had good instincts on legal issues and that he preferred Thompson's positions on the First Amendment and political speech to McCain's sponsorship of campaign finance reform. Volokh also liked Thompson's position in favor of individual gun ownership. Volokh also noted that Thompson "takes federalism seriously, and he seems to have a fairly deep-seated sense that there is a real difference between state and federal power."

Writing

Volokh is noted for his scholarship on the First and Second Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as on copyright law. His article, "The Commonplace Second Amendment" was cited by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion in the landmark Second Amendment case of District of Columbia v. Heller (128 S. Ct. 2783, 2789). He advocates campus speech rights and religious freedom, and opposes racial preferences, having worked as a legal advisor to California's Proposition 209 campaign. He is a critic of what he sees as the overly broad operation of American workplace harassment laws, including those relating to sexual harassment.

On his weblog, Volokh addresses a wide variety of issues, with a focus on politics and law. He has criticized student law review article citations of Wikipedia, arguing that information found on Wikipedia may be unreliable.

Volokh's non-academic work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Slate, and other publications. Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

Books

• Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar Papers. New York: Foundation Press. 2003. ISBN 1587784777. 
• The First Amendment: Problems, Cases and Policy Arguments. New York: Foundation Press. 2001. ISBN 1587781441. 

Articles (partial list)

• "Symbolic Expression and the Original Meaning of the First Amendment" (PDF). Georgetown Law Journal 97 (4): 1057–1084. 2009. http://www.georgetownlawjournal.com/issues/pdf/97-4/Volokh.PDF. 
• "Freedom of Expressive Association and Government Subsidies" (PDF). Stanford Law Review 58 (6): 1919–1968. 2006. http://lawreview.stanford.edu/content/vol58/issue6/volokh.pdf. 
• "Parent-Child Speech and Child Custody Speech Restrictions" (PDF). NYU Law Review 81 (2): 631. 2006. http://www.law.nyu.edu/JOURNALS/LAWREVIEW/ISSUES/vol81/no2/NYU203.pdf. 
• "Crime-Facilitating Speech" (PDF). Stanford Law Review 57 (4): 1095–1222. 2005. http://www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/volokh/facilitating.pdf. 
• Volokh, Eugene (2003). "The Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope" (PDF). Harvard Law Review (Harvard Law Review, Vol. 116, No. 4) 116 (4): 1026–1137. doi:10.2307/1342743. JSTOR 1342743. https://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/slippery.pdf. 
• "Test Suites: A Tool for Improving Student Articles" (PDF). Journal of Legal Education 52: 440. 2002. http://www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/volokh/testsuites.pdf. 
• "How the Justices Voted in Free Speech Cases, 1994-2000". UCLA Law Review 48: 1191. 2001. 
• Volokh, Eugene (2000). "Freedom of Speech and Information Privacy: The Troubling Implications of a Right to Stop Others from Speaking About You" (PDF). Stanford Law Review (Stanford Law Review, Vol. 52, No. 5) 52 (5): 1049–1124. doi:10.2307/1229510. JSTOR 1229510. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/telecom/volokhfreedomofspeechandinformationprivacy.pdf. 
• "A Common-Law Model for Religious Exemptions". UCLA Law Review 46: 1465. 1999. 
• Volokh, Eugene; McDonell, Brett (1998). "Freedom of Speech and Independent Judgment Review in Copyright Cases". Yale Law Journal (The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 107, No. 8) 107 (8): 2431–2471. doi:10.2307/797347. JSTOR 797347. 
• "The Commonplace Second Amendment". NYU Law Review 73: 793. 1998. http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/common.htm. 
• Volokh, Eugene (1995). "Cheap Speech and What It Will Do". Yale Law Journal (The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 104, No. 7) 104 (7): 1805–1850. doi:10.2307/797032. JSTOR 797032. 
• Kozinski, Alex; with Kozinski, Alex (1993). "Lawsuit, Shmawsuit". Yale Law Journal (The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 103, No. 2) 103 (2): 463–467. doi:10.2307/797101. JSTOR 797101. 

See also

• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States

External links

• The Volokh Conspiracy website
• Volokh's Webpage at UCLA
• Video discussions and debates involving Volokh on Bloggingheads.tv