Joseph D. Kearney is dean and professor of law at Marquette University Law School. He is in his thirteenth year as dean of Marquette University Law School and is only the ninth person to hold the position since 1908. Dean Kearney has been a member of the Marquette faculty since 1997.
Before coming to Marquette Law School, Dean Kearney practiced for six years at Sidley & Austin in Chicago. He also served as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court, and to Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Dean Kearney is an accomplished teacher, scholar, administrator, and lawyer. He teaches each semester, including upper-level courses in Advanced Civil Procedure and Federal Courts and a Supreme Court Seminar. His scholarly articles have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, and Marquette Law Review, among other journals. They variously focus on regulation of industry (particularly telecommunications), civil litigation, judicial selection, and Chicago legal history.
Dean Kearney's background as a practitioner is in appellate and telecommunications litigation. He has argued cases before the Wisconsin and Illinois Supreme Courts and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and has been the primary draftsman of winning briefs on the merits in the United States Supreme Court.
Dean Kearney is an honors graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School.