Joseph Blocher
Assistant Professor of Law
Joseph Blocher’s principal academic interests include constitutional law, the First and Second Amendments, capital punishment, property, federal courts, and law and development.
Prior to his return to his hometown of Durham to take a position at Duke Law in 2009, Blocher clerked for Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Rosemary Barkett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He also practiced in the appellate group of O’Melveny & Myers, where he assisted the merits briefing for the District of Columbia in District of Columbia v. Heller.
Blocher received his B.A., magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Rice University, and studied law and economic development as a Fulbright Scholar in Ghana and as a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University, where he received an M.Phil. in Land Economy.
He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as comments editor of the Yale Law Journal, symposium editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review, notes editor of the Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal, participated in or directed several clinics, and was co-chair of the Legal Services Organization. He was awarded the Edward D. Robbins Memorial Prize, and worked with Professor Neal Katyal of Georgetown University Law Center on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the successful challenge to the use of military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Blocher's articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, New York University Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Southern California Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and other journals, as well as in the online editions of the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review.
