Louise Weinberg is an American legal scholar, writing in the fields of federal courts, constitutional law, the conflict of laws, and Supreme Court history. A professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Weinberg holds the endowed William B. Bates Chair in the Administration of Justice, the chair previously held by Charles Alan Wright, and has revived Charles Alan Wright’s famous Supreme Court Seminar. Weinberg is a legal theorist in the tradition of the American legal realists. She is particularly known for
her writings on “federal common law”
the concept, “judicial federalism”
her proposed reorganization of theory in the conflict of laws
her 70-page defense, against latter-day attacks, of Marbury v. Madison as “our greatest case.”
Academic career
Prior to coming to the University of Texas, Weinberg was a teaching fellow at Harvard Law School, taught an undergraduate law course at Brandeis University, was tenured at Suffolk Law School, and was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School. At Texas, Weinberg has been honored with various named professorships and is now holder of the endowed William B. Bates Chair in the Administration of Justice, formerly held by Charles Alan Wright. She teaches Federal Courts and Constitutional Law, and has revived the famous Supreme Court Seminar originated at Texas by Wright.
Education and Clerkship
Weinberg was graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University. She has two Harvard law degrees, the J.D. and the LL.M. She clerked for the eminent jurist, Charles Edward Wyzanski Jr.
Practice of Law
Before embarking on her academic career, Weinberg was Associate in Litigation with Bingham, Dana and Gould, Boston, later Bingham, McCutcheon.
Louise Weinberg was born in New York and raised in Forest Hills. She is married to Steven Weinberg, the physicist and Nobel laureate. They have a married daughter and grandchild. At the age of 14, Weinberg won first prize in Seventeen Magazine’s national short story contest. She was the front-page columnist for her high school newspaper, and at Cornell she was drama critic for the Cornell Daily Sun. Louise and Steven Weinberg, with five other couples, founded The Tuesday Club of Austin, Texas, now with over 200 members and a branch in Atlanta. Co-founders included Hon. Jerre Williams and Hon. Mary Pearl Williams, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman and Nancy Inman, Austin-American Statesman Editor Arthur Rosenfeld and Ruth Rosenfeld, and Chancellor Hans Mark and Marion Mark. Louise Weinberg is a member of Town and Gown, an Austin institution. As an early member of the Board of Directors of Ballet Austin, Louise Weinberg first proposed the establishment of the ballet school, now a flourishing arm of Ballet Austin. Weinberg served on the Board of the Austin Foreign Affairs Council under the directorship of Philip Bobbitt.
