Prof. Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker is a professor of law at Michigan Law. His research focuses primarily on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. He teaches Administrative Law, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Litigation, Federal Courts, Legislation and Regulation, and State and Local Government Law.

Professor Walker’s publications have appeared in the California Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and University of Pennsylvania Law Review, among others. His article Legislating in the Shadows was selected as the recipient of the 2016 American Association of Law Schools Scholarly Papers Competition Award. His book, Constraining Bureaucracy Beyond Judicial Review, is forthcoming with the Cambridge University Press.

Professor Walker brings to his scholarship and to the classroom extensive practical experience of having worked in all three branches of the federal government, as well as in private practice. Prior to joining the Michigan Law faculty, he taught for a decade at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He worked for several years at a litigation boutique in Washington, D.C., as well as on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he represented federal agencies in a variety of regulatory contexts. In 2017, he served as an academic fellow on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working on the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation as well as on regulatory reform legislation for Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). From 2017 to 2021, Professor Walker served on Senators Brown and Portman’s bipartisan judicial advisory commission to help fill 10 federal district court vacancies in Ohio, including as chair in 2018 and 2019.

Outside Michigan Law, Professor Walker serves as one of 40 public members of the Administrative Conference of the United States and as past chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. He also is a regular blogger at the Yale Journal on Regulation and the section editor for Jotwell’s Administrative Law Section. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.