Associate Dean for Academic Affairs & J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law
Kent Barnett
Fax
(706) 542-5556

University of Georgia
School of Law
Dean's Office
Athens, GA 30602
United States

Administrative Support

B.A., Centre College
J.D., University of Kentucky

Courses

Administrative Law
Contracts and Sales
Consumer Law

Biographical Information

Kent Barnett currently serves as the University of Georgia School of Law's associate dean for academic affairs. Specializing in administrative law, contracts and consumer law, he joined the law school's faculty in 2012. He has received the C. Ronald Ellington Award for Excellence in Teaching and been selected to serve as a faculty marshal by three graduating classes for commencement ceremonies.

Barnett's research focuses on the separation of powers in the federal administrative state, administrative adjudication and judicial review of agency action. His scholarship has been cited by leading administrative law casebooks and by federal district and appellate courts. His work has been selected for presentation at, among other places, the Yale-Stanford-Harvard Junior Faculty Forum, the Southeastern Association of Law Schools Annual Conference as one of the winners of a call for papers from law faculty, and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Annual Meetings.

Barnett is currently an appointed public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency that provides research and recommendations to agencies and Congress to improve the federal bureaucracy. He served as the reporter for the Model Adjudication Rules by ACUS for use in all federal agency evidentiary hearings. He also served as chair of the Administrative Law Section of the AALS.

Before coming to UGA, he was the inaugural visiting assistant professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law, a judicial clerk for Judge John Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit and a member of the complex-commercial-litigation and appellate groups at Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

He earned his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Centre College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, was selected as a John C. Young Scholar and received The Art Prize, The E. Wilbur Cook Music Prize and The Franklin-Bennett Music Prize. He received his law degree summa cum laude from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif, served as articles editor of the Kentucky Law Journal and received, among other awards, the Colvin P. Rouse Award for best overall legal scholarship and the Kentucky Commercial Law Foundation Award for best commercial-law scholarship.

Publications & Activities

BOOKS

Administrative Law (Fifth Edition, 2021) (with John M. Rogers, Michael P. Healy, and Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr.).

ARTICLES

How Chevron Deference Fits Into Article III, 89 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1143 (2021) (invited article for Annual Review of Administrative Law). 

Chevron Abroad, 96 Notre Dame L. Rev. 621 (2020) (with L. Vinson).

Regulating Impartiality in Agency Adjudication, 69 Duke L.J. 1695 (2020).

Some Kind of Hearing Officer, 94 Wash. L. Rev. 515 (2019).

Due Process for Article III--Rethinking Murray's Lessee, 26 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 677 (2019).

Towards Optimal Enforcement, 72 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 127 (2019) (invited response to Michael Sant'Ambrogio, Private Enforcement in Administrative Courts, 72 Vand. L. Rev. 425 (2019)).

Non-ALJ Adjudicators in Federal Agencies: Status, Selection, Oversight, and Removal, 53 Ga. L. Rev. 1 (2019) (with R. Wheeler) (republication, in substantially similar form, of 2018 report to the Administrative Conference of the United States).

Administrative Law's Political Dynamics, 71 Vand. L. Rev. 1463 (2018) (with Prof. Christina Boyd, University of Georgia Department of Political Science, and Prof. Christopher Walker, The Ohio State University, Michael E. Mortiz College of Law).

The Politics of Selecting Chevron Deference, 15 J. Empirical L. Stud. 597 (2018) (with C. Boyd & C. Walker).

Chevron Step Two's Domain, 93 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1441 (2018) (with C. Walker).

Chevron in the Circuit Courts, 116 Mich. L. Rev. 1 (2017) (with C. Walker).

Chevron in the Circuit Courts: The Codebook Appendix, 116 Mich. L. Rev. Online, 1 (2017) (with C. Walker).

Short-Circuiting the New Major Questions Doctrine, 70 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 147 (2017) (with C. Walker) (invited response to Michael Coenen & Seth Davis, Minor Courts, Major Questions, 70 Vand. L. Rev. 777 (2017)).

Why Bias Challenges to Administrative Adjudication Should Succeed, 81 Mo. L. Rev. 1023 (2017).

How the Supreme Court Derailed Formal Rulemaking, 85 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. Arguendo 1 (2017).

Standing for (and up to) the Separation of Powers, 91 Ind. L.J. 665 (2016).

Against Administrative Judges, 49 UC Davis L. Rev. 1643 (2016).

Codifying Chevmore, 90 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1 (2015).

Improving Agencies' Preemption Expertise with Chevmore Codification, 83 Fordham L. Rev. 587 (2014).

To the Victor Goes the Toil--Remedies for Regulated Parties in Separation-of-Powers Litigation, 92 N.C. L. Rev. 481 (2014).

Resolving the ALJ Quandary, 66 Vand. L. Rev. 797 (2013).

Avoiding Independent Agency Armageddon, 87 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1349 (2012).

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Appointment with Trouble, 60 Am. U. L. Rev. 1459 (2011).

Putting the Cart Before the Horse: Should a Court Certify a Class of Residential Consumers Seeking a Declaration that the Consumers--if They Later Choose--Are Entitled to Rescind for a TILA Violation?, 125 Banking L.J. 160 (2008) (with Angela C. Zambrano).

Lending a Helping Hand?--A Guide to Kentucky's New Predatory Lending Law, 93 Ky. L.J. 473 (2005).

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS

ABA Administrative Law Section Conference, How Chevron Deference Fits Into Article III, Nov. 2020.

Symposium, Presenter, Charting the New World of Administrative Adjudication, Duke Law School, Durham, NC, Feb. 2020.

Judicial Deference (Theoretical and Axiological Aspects), Centre for Antitrust and Regulatory Studies, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland, Oct. 2018.

AALS Annual Meeting, Administrative Law's New Scholarly Trends, San Francisco, Cal., Jan. 2017.

ABA Administrative Law Conference, The Past and Future of Judicial Deference: a Scholarly Examination, Washington, D.C., Dec. 2016.

ABA Administrative Law Conference, Rethinking Administrative Adjudication, Washington, D.C., Dec. 2016.

Symposium, Missouri Law Review, A Future Without the Administrative State?, University of Missouri School of Law, Columbia, Mo., Mar. 2016.

ABA Administrative Law Section Annual Meeting, SEC v. Hill: The Future of ALJs, Washington D.C., Oct. 2015.

Federal Administrative Law Judge Conference Annual Meeting, The Constitutionality of Administrative Law Judges after Free Enterprise Fund, Charleston, S.C., Sept. 2015.

SEALS Annual Meeting, Codifying Chevmore, Winner of Call for Papers Competition (one of four), Amelia Island, Fla., Aug. 2014.

Symposium, Fordham Law Review, Chevron at 30: Looking Back and Looking Forward, Fordham University School of Law, New York, NY, Mar. 2014.

AALS Annual Meeting, New Voices in Public Remedies, New York, NY, Jan. 2014.

SEALS Annual Meeting, Administrative Procedure: Enemy of the State?, Palm Beach, Fla., Aug. 2013.

Junior Faculty Federal Courts Workshop, Structural Improvements to Formal Executive Adjudication, William and Mary College of Law, Williamsburg, Va., Oct. 2012.

Yale-Stanford-Harvard Junior Faculty Forum, Formal Administrative Adjudication's Separation-of-Powers Quandary, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass., June 2012.

Symposium, American University Law Review, Is Financial Reform Too Big to Fail?, Am. U. Washington College of Law, Washington, D.C., Mar. 2011.