Trevor W. Morrison

Trevor Morrison is the Eric M. and Laurie B. Roth Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus at New York University School of Law. He served as Dean of NYU Law from 2013 to 2022. He is also Of Counsel at the firm of Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP.

Morrison’s research and teaching interests are in constitutional law (especially separation of powers and federalism) and federal courts. He has written extensively about constitutional law as practiced in the executive branch, and about the role of historical practice in informing our understanding of the constitutional separation of powers.

Morrison served as Associate Counsel to President Barack Obama in 2009. Earlier in his career, he was a law clerk to Judge Betty B. Fletcher of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (1998-99) and to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the US Supreme Court (2002-03). Between those clerkships, he was a Bristow Fellow in the US Justice Department's Office of the Solicitor General (1999-2000), an attorney-advisor in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (2000-01), and an associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) (2001-02).

Morrison began his teaching career on the faculty of Cornell Law School and later joined the faculty of Columbia Law School before coming to NYU.

Morrison has been appointed to a number of government commissions and other entities. In 2023, President Joe Biden appointed him to the Permanent Committee for the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise. In 2021, President Biden appointed him to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. And in 2016, President Obama appointed him to the Public Interest Declassification Board.

Morrison received a BA (hons.) in history from the University of British Columbia in 1994, and a JD from Columbia Law School in 1998. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Law Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations.