Faculty/Staff ProfileTitle

Areas of Expertise
Administrative Law
Civil Procedure
Constitutional Law
Federal Courts

Biography
Kimberly Wehle joined the faculty in 2009 after serving as an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and a Visiting Professor at the George Washington University Law School. She teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, administrative law, federal courts, civil procedure and the U.S. Supreme Court, with a particular interest in the separation of powers. Her articles have appeared in the Notre Dame Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal, the Stanford Law & Policy Review, and the North Carolina Law Review, among others, and her work is cited in a leading federal courts casebook. She is the 2020 recipient of the prestigious University of Maryland System Board of Regents Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship and the law school's 2021 Faculty Award for Public Discourse Scholarship.

In the Spring of 2025, Professor Wehle was a Fulbright Scholar at Leiden University, The Netherlands, and the inaugural Thinker-in-Residence at the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam. 

Professor Wehle believes that democracy depends on a common understanding of basic constitutional theory, for which the legal academy can a vital role beyond the classroom and traditional scholarly fora. She has authored four books that explain complex constitutional concepts for general audiences, including How to Read the Constitution—and Why (which has been incorporated into high school and college-level courses across the nation), What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why, and How to Think Like a Lawyer—and Why (all with Harper Collins). Her most recent book, Pardon Power: How the Pardon System Works—and Why, was the 2025 Silver Winner of The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) Book Award, Political and Current Events. 

Professor Wehle also publishes a twice-weekly Substack newsletter, The Little Law School with Kim Wehle.

As part of her public-facing work, Professor Wehle speaks widely around the globe about legal issues related to American democracy and the U.S. Constitution, and is a sought-after expert by legacy media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine. She is a legal contributor for ABC News and a regular opinion columnist for The Bulwark, Zeteo and The Hill. Prior to joining ABC News, she was a legal contributor for BBC World News and BBC World News America on PBS, and an on-air legal analyst and commentator for CBS News. She also frequently appears as a guest legal analyst on numerous other outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS NewsHour and Fox News. She has published guest columns in The Atlantic, Politico, The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and Newsweek, among other platforms. 

During law school, Professor Wehle was an editor of the Michigan Law Review, after which she clerked for the Hon. Charles R. Richey of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She went on to practice, first at the Federal Trade Commission and subsequently as an Associate Independent Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Office of the United States Attorney in Washington, D.C., and in private practice. She has worked on matters before the United States Supreme Court and argued several cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and in the First Circuit.

Wehle serves as an advisor to a number of nonprofit organizations, including Protect Democracy and The Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement at The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. She is frequently called upon by foreign embassies, amici parties and counsel in appellate matters, congressional staff and others in government for advice on issues of constitutional significance.