Barry Cushman, a legal historian and educator, was a professor of law and history at the University of Virginia from 1998 until 2012. After taking a B.A. at Amherst College, he went on to graduate from the University of Virginia with both an M.A. in history and a J.D. in 1986. Cushman clerked for Justice Richard F. Neely of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and then entered into law practice as an associate at Riordan & McKinzie in Los Angeles, working as an estate planning and probate attorney.
After a fellowship in legal history at New York University, Cushman joined the faculty of the St. Louis University School of Law in 1991. During this time, he authored several scholarly articles, earned the Student Bar Association Teacher of the Year Award in 1993 and 1995, and completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of Virginia in 1995. His book, Rethinking the New Deal Court: The Structure of a Constitutional Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1998), challenged the traditional interpretation of the Supreme Court’s shift from rejection towards acceptance of New Deal legislation. The book won the Littleton-Griswold Prize in American Law and Society.
Cushman joined the University of Virginia law faculty in 1998, teaching courses in constitutional law, property, estates and trusts, and American legal history. His educational and scholarly activities continued to reflect his interdisciplinary background, and he was the director of the Law School’s joint degree Program in Legal History and Program on Legal and Constitutional History. In 2003, he was awarded U.Va.’s All-University Teaching Award, and he became the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law in 2008. He served on several Law School committees and was a member of the board of directors of the University of Virginia Press. He accepted a position at the Notre Dame Law School in 2012.
The Hughes Court and Constitutional Consultation, 1998(1) J. Sup. Ct. Hist. 79-111.
Lost Fidelities, 41 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 95-145 (1999).
Formalism and Realism in Commerce Clause Jurisprudence, 67 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1089-1150 (2000).
Lochner, Liquor and Longshoremen: A Puzzle in Progressive Era Federalism, 32 J. Mar. L. & Com. 1-58 (2001).
Mr. Dooley and Mr. Gallup: Public Opinion and Constitutional Change in the 1930s, 50 Buff. L. Rev. 7-101 (2002).
Continuity and Change in Commerce Clause Jurisprudence, 55 Ark L. Rev. 1009-1054 (2003).
Small Differences?, 55 Ark L. Rev. 1097-1148 (2003).
Some Varieties and Vicissitudes of Lochnerism, 85 B.U. L. Rev. 881-1000 (2005).
Regime Theory and Unenumerated Rights: A Cautionary Note, 9 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 263-279 (2006).
The Great Depression and the New Deal, in 3 Cambridge History of Law in America 268-318, 802-813 (Michael Grossberg & Christopher Tomlins eds., Cambridge University Press, 2008).
The Securities Laws and the Mechanics of Legal Change, 95 Va. L. Rev. 927-939 (2009).
Headline Kidnappings and the Origins of the Lindbergh Law, 55 St. Louis U. L.J. 1293-1316 (2011).
The Hughes-Roberts Visit, 15 Green Bag 2d 125-137 (2012).
The Limits of the New Deal Analogy, 15 Green Bag 2d 139-147 (2012).
New Deal (Constitutional Significance), in 4 Encyclopedia of the American Constitution 1797-1798 (Leonard W. Levy & Kenneth L. Karst eds., 2d ed., Macmillan Reference USA, 2000).
Clerking for Scrooge (reviewing Garrow & Huthinson eds., The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox), 70 U. Chi. L. Rev. 721-749 (2003).
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