Behavioral Law Expert Jolls Gains HLS Tenure

Christine M. Jolls, an expert in the emerging field of behavioral law and economics, has been granted tenure at Harvard Law School (HLS).

Jolls, a 1993 HLS graduate, has served as an HLS assistant professor since 1994.

"I am very honored and happy at the prospect of spending more time here," Jolls said.

HLS Dean Robert C. Clark said that Jolls will bring "cutting-edge research" to HLS.

"Christine Jolls is the leader of a new generation of scholars that incorporate behavioral models into the economic analysis of law," Clark said in a press release.

Dorothy L. Mares, a 2000 graduate of HLS, said Jolls is also a popular teacher.

"She is a very approachable and conscientious professor," Mares said. "She cares a lot about her students."

As a researcher, Jolls has sought to understand more fully how people make decisions so that laws can be better informed.

Jolls has criticized the traditional economic approach to law that supposes that people always act rationally-which Jolls said is not always true.

Jolls became interested in employment and behavioral law when she was a student at HLS. She disagreed with the prevailing economic view at the time, which she said advocated a non-interventionist and conservative approach to law.

"Everyone ridiculed economic analysis in law school because of its assumed conservative political orientation," she said. "I wanted a more unbiased view."

In 1995, Jolls earned a doctorate in economics from MIT, and has applied that knowledge to her study of law.

"In some sense it was a calling. There was a whole perspective that was missing," she said.

Next year, Jolls will teach courses on employment law and a first-year class on contracts.

She will also serve as a national fellow at the National Bureau of Economics Research next year.

After becoming an HLS assistant professor in 1994, Jolls took two years off to work as a law clerk for both Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals, then for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

She also serves on the American Law and Economic Review's editorial board and is a faculty fellow for the University's Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative.

Jolls completed her undergraduate degree in English and quantitative economics at Stanford University.

--Staff writer William M. Rasmussen can be reached at wrasmuss@fas.harvard.edu.