Political party Democratic Relatives See Roosevelt family Role Teacher Grandparents Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. | Religion Christian Name Kermit III Parents Kermit Roosevelt | |
 | ||
Born July 14, 1971 (age 52) ( 1971-07-14 ) Washington, D.C. Citizenship United States of America Alma mater Harvard University
Yale Law School Known for Allegiance
The Myth of Judicial Activism
In the Shadow of the Law Residence Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Education Yale Law School, Harvard University Great-grandparents Kermit Roosevelt, Belle Wyatt Willard Books In the Shadow of the Law, The Myth of Judicial Activism, Conflict of Laws | ||
Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's Great Great Grandson: TR's Vision and How It Shaped America
Kermit Roosevelt III (born July 14, 1971) is an American teacher, writer, author, and lawyer. A member of the prestigious Roosevelt family, he is law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the author of several books. He is a great-great-grandson of United States President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) and the fifth cousin four-times removed of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945).
Contents
Early life
Roosevelt was born in Washington, D.C. on July 14, 1971. His father, also Kermit (born April 7, 1938), is a great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. He graduated from St. Albans School (where he was a Presidential Scholar), Harvard University, and Yale Law School. He was a law clerk for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the D.C. Circuit, and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
Career
Roosevelt worked as a lawyer with Mayer Brown in Chicago from 2000 to 2002 before joining the Penn Law faculty in 2002.
Roosevelt's areas of academic interest include conflicts of law and constitutional law. He has published in the Virginia Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, and the Columbia Law Review, among others, and his articles have been cited twice by the United States Supreme Court and numerous times by state and lower federal courts.
Some of his recent scholarly publications include "Detention and Interrogation in the Post-9/11 World," delivered as the Donahue Lecture at Suffolk University Law School in 2008, “Guantanamo and the Conflict of Laws: Rasul and Beyond” (2005), published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, "Constitutional Calcification: How the Law Becomes What the Court Does," University of Virginia Law Review (2005), and "Resolving Renvoi: the Bewitchment of Our Intelligence by Means of Language," Notre Dame Law Review (2005).
Roosevelt is also a novelist. In a 2005 New York Times review of Roosevelt's novel In the Shadow of the Law, Alan Dershowitz wrote, "I recommend this book with real enthusiasm. Why? Precisely because it doesn't glamorize its subject. Roosevelt's gritty portrayal of the transformation of bright-eyed and colorful young associates into dim-eyed and gray middle-aged partners (no one seems to make it to his or her golden years) rings true of all too many corporate law factories." In 2006, Paramount filmed a pilot episode (written by Carol Mendelsohn) for a TV series based on the novel, starring Joshua Jackson, Frank Langella, Kevin Pollack, Monet Mazur, and Alan Tudyk.
His second novel, Allegiance, which concerns the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, was published in August 2015. It received favorable reviews in the Wall Street Journal ("well worth reading") and the Richmond Times-Dispatch ("splendid, troubling, and authoritative") and a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
Roosevelt is a Distinguished Research Fellow of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the American Law Institute. In November 2014, the American Law Institute announced that Roosevelt had been selected as the Reporter for the Third Restatement of Conflict of Laws. Roosevelt is also a lecturer for Kaplan Bar Review. He prepares students in all 50 states for the Constitutional Law portion of the bar exam.