Ann Southworth
Professor of Law
Co-Director, Center for Empirical Research on the Legal Profession
Joint appointment in Criminology, Law & Society
Expertise:
Legal profession, professional responsibility, public interest law, conservative legal movement and cause lawyers
Background:
Professor Southworth teaches and writes on the legal profession and lawyers who serve causes, with an emphasis on lawyers’ norms, professional identities, practices, organizations, and networks. She participated in designing UC Irvine School of Law’s required first year course on the American legal profession, and is the co-author, with Catherine Fisk, of an interdisciplinary textbook, The Legal Profession, which is now in its 2nd edition. She has published numerous articles on civil rights and poverty lawyers, lawyers involved in national policy-making, and advocates for conservative and libertarian causes, as well as a book on the conservative legal movement, Lawyers of the Right: Professionalizing the Conservative Coalition (University of Chicago Press 2008). Her new book, Big Money Unleashed: The Campaign to Deregulate Election Spending, explores the roles that lawyers, advocacy organizations, and their patrons have played in the creation of Supreme Court doctrine invalidating campaign finance laws on First Amendment grounds. It was published by the University of Chicago Press in December 2023.
Prior to joining the founding faculty at UC Irvine School of Law, she was a law professor at Case Western Reserve and an affiliated scholar at the American Bar Foundation. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard and UCLA. She clerked for Judge Stanley A. Weigel and practiced at Morrison & Foerster, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the U.S. Department of Justice. She received her B.A. and J.D. degrees from Stanford University.
Prior Courses:
Issues of Accountability for Lawyers and the Legal Profession, Legal Profession, Legal Profession: Advanced Topics, Civil Procedure, Cause Lawyering(Log in to view full course descriptions in the UCI Law Course Catalog)
- The Legal Profession: Ethics in Contemporary Practice, 3rd Ed. (with Catherine Fisk) (West Academic 2024
- “Integrating Normative and Empirical Perspectives in Legal Ethics Training” in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Legal Ethics (eds. Scott Cummings, Ole Hammerslev, Tamara Butter, Sergio Anzola) (Edgar, forthcoming 2024)
- US Conservative Advocacy Organizations and Right-Wing Legal Mobilization in Europe, International Journal of Law in Context (forthcoming 2024)
- Ann Southworth, Big Money Unleashed: The Campaign to Deregulate Election Spending (2023)
- Ann Southworth, What Lawyers Do: Understanding the Many American Legal Practices (with Catherine Fisk) (2020).
- The American Legal Profession in the New Millennium: Out of Many, One? (with Carroll Seron, Scott Cummings, Anna Raup-Kounovsky, Rebecca Sandefur, Steven Boutcher, in Lawyers in the 21st Century (eds. Richard Abel, Ulrike Shultz, Ole Hammerslev, Hilary Sommerland) (Hart) (2020).
- Ann Southworth & Catherine L. Fisk, The Legal Profession: Ethics in Contemporary Practice 2nd Ed (2019).
- Lawyers and the Conservative Counterrevolution, 43Law and Social Inquiry 1698-1728 (2018).
- The Consequences of Citizens United: What Do the Lawyers Say? 93 Chicago-Kent Law Rev. 101 (2018) (article for invited symposium).
- Elements of the Support Structure for Campaign Finance Litigation in the Roberts Court, 43 Law and Social Inquiry 319-359 (2018)
- Our Fragmented Profession, 30 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 431 (2017)
- Ann Southworth, Bryant Garth & Catherine Fisk, Some Realism about Realism in Teaching about the Legal Profession, in 1 The New Legal Realism: Translating Law-and-Society for Today’s Legal Practice 74 (Elizabeth Mertz, Stewart Macaulay & Thomas W. Mitchell eds., 2016).
- Ann Southworth & Catherine L. Fisk, The Legal Profession: Ethics in Contemporary Practice (2014).
- Ann Southworth, What is Public Interest Law? Empirical Perspectives on an Old Question, 62 DePaul L. Rev. 493 (2013).
- Ann Southworth, Anthony Paik & John P. Heinz, Lawyers in National Policymaking,in The Paradox of Professionalism: Law and the Possibility of Justice 220 (Scott Cummings ed., 2011).
- Ann Southworth, Students Need to Learn About The Profession They’re Joining, A.B.A. J. Legal Rebels, Oct. 15, 2009.
- Ann Southworth, Lawyers of the Right: Professionalizing the Conservative Coalition (2008).
- January 2025
Invited speaker, AALS Annual Meeting panel on “More Money Than Ever: Campaign Finance Law and American Democracy” - October 2024
Invited lecture, “Big Money Unleashed,” University of Amsterdam - November 2024
Invited lecture, “$peech,” University of Leeds, U.K. - April 16, 2024
Speaker, Book talk presented by the Fordham Voting Rights and Democracy Project at Fordham University School of Law - January 6, 2024:
Big Money Unleashed: Author-Meets-Reader, AALS Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. - August 31, 2023:
“Integrating Normative and Empirical Perspectives in Legal Ethics Training,” Research Committee on Sociology of Law, Lund University, Lund, Sweden - March 22, 2023:
Discussant, Workshop on “Populism, Non-State Actors, and Legal Mobilization in Europe,” European University Institute, Florence - March 30, 2023:
Commentator, Book panel for Nomi Stolzenberg and David Myers, American Shtetl (Princeton U. Press 2021), USC Center for Law, History, and Culture - March 22, 2023:
Discussant, Symposium on “Populism, Non-State Actors, and Legal Mobilization in Europe," European University Institute in Florence - October 6, 2022:
Panelist, How to Make Productive Use of a Sabbatical or a Leave of Absence, AALS webinar - August 15, 2022:
Judicial Review and Lawyer Accountability in the Campaign to Unleash Big Money in American Politics, International Legal Ethics Conference, UCLA - August 15, 2022:
Round Table, Does Our Work Matter?, International Legal Ethics Conference, UCLA - July 10-12, 2022:
Issues of Lawyer Accountability in the Campaign to Unleash Big Money in American Politics, Working Group of the Legal Professions Meeting, Coimbra, Portugal - July 16, 2022:
$peech: The Campaign to Unleash Big Money in American Politics, AALS Annual Meeting, Lisbon - Jan. 7, 2022:
Panelist, What Research Can Tell Us About How Law Schools, Lawyers, and Leaders Can Nourish Democracy, University of Arkansas - December 6, 2021:
Commentator, Book Launch for Yves Dezalay and Bryant Garth’s “Law as Reproduction and Revolution,” UC Irvine Center for Empirical Research on the Legal Profession - May 2021:
Discourse and Frames in Battles Over Campaign Finance Regulation in the Roberts Court, Law & Society Annual Meeting - Dec. 11, 2020
Participant, Southern California Pathways Day, Online - Nov. 6, 2020
Presenter, "The Strange Bedfellows Coalition of Parties and Amici in Citizens United," UCI Law Socio-Legal Studies Workshop, Online - Oct. 16, 2020
Panelist, Campaign Finance and Other First Amendment Issues in the 2020 Election, Election 2020: A Call for Civic Engagement to Promote Democracy Speaker Series, Online - Jan. 5. 2018
Discussion Group Participant, “Professional Identity Development Tools to Help Law Students Meet the Needs of Today’s Clients,” AALS Annual Meeting 2018, San Diego, CA - October 17, 2017
The Consequences of Citizens United: What Do the Lawyers Say? ITT Chicago-Kent College of Law, Symposium on the Supreme Court and American Politics - June 19, 2017
The American Legal Profession in the New Millennium: Out of Many, One? (with Scott Cummings and Carroll Seron), Mexico City, Mexico - June 2, 2017
Co-Host/Organizer, “Legal Education: The State of the Art,” Inaugural conference of UCI Center for Empirical Research on the Legal Profession (CERLP), UC Irvine School of Law - Feb. 24, 2016
Featured Speaker, Public Interest Lawyering in the U.S. and Beyond symposium, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
- Awarded a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London for Fall 2024.
- Bite-Sized Business Law: Big Spenders: The Evolution of Corporate Money in Elections (Podcast)
- UC Irvine Law Leadership and Presenters at 2025 AALS Annual Meeting: “Courage in Action”
- CATO Institute: A Look Back at the Panic Over Big Money in Politics (Book Review)
- Reason: Professor Ann Southworth’s Book “Big Money Unleashed: The Campaign to Deregulate Election Spending” (Book Review)
- Faculty Roundup (October 2024)
- Faculty Roundup: The latest highlights from UCI Law’s faculty (May 2024)
- Faculty Roundup: The latest highlights from UCI Law’s faculty
- Faculty Roundup: The latest highlights from UCI Law’s faculty
- UCI Law Leadership and Presenters at 2024 AALS Annual Meeting: “Defending Democracy”
- New Book, “Big Money Unleashed: The Campaign to Deregulate Election Spending,” by UCI Law Professor Ann Southworth, Available for Pre-Order
- Media Advisory: “Big Money Unleashed: The Campaign to Deregulate Election Spending,” Book Talk with UCI Law Professor Ann Southworth
- Reuters: Pacific Legal Foundation snags Supreme Court trifecta
- The New Yorker: Prof. Southworth quoted in New Yorker article, "Justice Alito's Crusade Against A Secular America Isn't Over"
- Washington Post: Prof. Southworth’s forthcoming book, “$peech: The Campaign to Unleash Big Money in American Politics” highlighted for analysis linking James Bopp’s fight against campaign finance regulations to his work with antiabortion organizations