Texas Appellate Law Podcast – In an extensive interview, Vladeck, the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law, describes his career path through studying, clerking, practicing and teaching law. He also discusses his new book, The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic.
“I had a professor who was jointly appointed in the history and law jurisprudence and social thought departments at Amherst College,” Vladeck says, possibly alluding to Professor Lawrence Douglas. “He opened my eyes to the interaction and the inner relationship between law and history, law and politics, and the relevance of how the law responds to historical trauma and tries to react to historical trauma, things like war crimes trials and truth commissions.”
Vladeck went on from Amherst to earn a J.D. at Yale, where he “focused on the United States post-9/11 policy landscape and legal landscape.” He has held two clerkships, argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, taught at the University of Miami and American University before moving to Texas, and hosted law-related podcasts of his own.