Nikolas Bowie, constitutional law and legal history scholar, named professor of law at Harvard

ByTommie C. Curtis

Jun 15, 2022 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Man in a black sweater standing in front of a tree.

Credit rating: Lorin Granger

Nikolas Bowie ’14, a scholar of constitutional law, local authorities legislation, and legal history, is remaining promoted to professor of legislation at Harvard Regulation School, effective July 1.

Bowie joined the Harvard Regulation college as an assistant professor in 2018. He was formerly the Reginald Lewis Legislation Training Fellow at Harvard, while finishing a Ph.D. in history at Harvard University.

“Niko Bowie brings creativeness and brilliance to creating new and powerful means of knowing constitutional regulation and legal history,” mentioned John F. Manning ’85, the Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Legislation at Harvard Regulation Faculty. “Professor Bowie is also an inspiring and focused instructor and a generous colleague whose strength and like of concepts have extra so a lot to the Harvard Law University neighborhood.”

A historian who teaches courses in federal constitutional law, condition constitutional legislation, and neighborhood federal government regulation, Bowie’s study focuses on vital legal histories of democracy in the United States.

“The workers and students of Harvard Legislation University have an very critical duty to assistance establish justice in the entire world all-around us,” reported Bowie. “I am honored to have the assurance of the college that I will do my portion.”

A well-known instructor and influential mentor, Bowie was the winner of the 2021 Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching Excellence. In his speech, Bowie challenged the graduating college students to variety their individual idea of alter as a guideline for their professions and mirrored on classes he acquired from his mother, acclaimed authorized scholar and the late emerita Harvard Regulation Professor Lani Guinier.

In 2022 and 2021, Bowie was picked by the graduating pupil course marshals to supply a Past Lecture to the graduating course.

His scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Regulation Evaluation, the Regulation and Record Evaluation, the Stanford Regulation Evaluate, the Virginia Law Overview, and the Yale Regulation Journal. A different article, “The Separation-of-Powers Counterrevolution,” prepared with Harvard Law Professor Daphna Renan, is forthcoming in the Yale Regulation Journal. He has also composed essays for the New York Moments, the Washington Article, Slate, and other publications.

In addition to training and crafting, Professor Bowie litigates criminal and civil appeals. He is on the boards of the ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal professionals for Civil Legal rights, MassVote, and People’s Parity Challenge. Bowie also served on the postconviction and appellate panel of the Committee for Community Counsel Expert services, the community defender company of Massachusetts.

Bowie graduated in 2009 from Yale University, wherever he won the John A. Porter Prize for most effective senior thesis in American historical past. At Harvard, he earned an A.M. in history in 2011, a J.D. in 2014, and a Ph.D. in history in 2018.

At Harvard Legislation Faculty, Bowie served as an editor of the Harvard Legislation Review. He was also an oralist on the successful group in the Ames Moot Court Competitiveness. In 2017, he held the Berger-Howe Authorized Record Fellowship at Harvard Legislation University.

Bowie’s Ph.D. dissertation, “Corporate The usa: A Historical past of Corporate Statehood Because 1629,” examined the connection involving corporations and constitutions from the seventeenth-century Massachusetts Bay Enterprise to the current. The central theme was how People in america have recognized corporations as kinds of federal government that involve democratic techniques of political accountability.

Soon after graduating from Harvard Law, Bowie clerked for Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Courtroom of the United States and for Decide Jeffrey Sutton on the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.