KU News Release

Distinguished constitutional law professor to deliver inaugural lecture

Richard Levy

LAWRENCE — Richard Levy, the J.B. Smith Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Kansas, will present his inaugural lecture, “The Tie That Binds: Some Thoughts about the Rule of Law, Law and Economics, Collective Action Theory, Reciprocity and the Heisenberg Principle” at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 4, at the Summerfield Room in the Adams Alumni Center, 1266 Oread Ave.

Levy, who joined the KU faculty in 1985, became the first holder of the J.B. Smith Distinguished Professorship in Constitutional Law last year. He teaches administrative law, constitutional law and legislation, and he runs the legislative and public policy clinics.

“The inaugural lecture presents a wonderful opportunity to discuss several new ideas in legal scholarship and their implications for the rule of law, which is the focus of much of my recent work,” Levy said.

Levy focuses on the areas of governmental institutions, federalism, legislation, the legislative process, judicial review of administrative agencies, comparative constitutional law and legal systems. He is recognized as one of the nation’s leading authorities on the intersection of constitutional and administrative law. He was a Postlethwaite Research Scholar from 1996 to 1999.

Levy is president of KU’s Faculty Senate and is regularly called upon by the practicing bar, state agencies, the legislature and the central university for assistance in his areas of expertise.

Levy received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1984 and served as a law clerk to Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1984 to 1985. He has studied in Germany and was an exchange professor at the University of Vienna. He holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees from KU.

The professorship was established by Art Piculell, who earned his law degree from KU in 1965, and his wife, Dee, in honor of Piculell’s constitutional law professor, the late J.B. Smith.

“I am extremely grateful to Art and Dee Piculell for their generous contribution that made this professorship possible,” Levy said. “And I am honored to be associated with the great constitutional scholar J.B. Smith.”

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