Legal history scholar Nathaniel Donahue to join NYU Law faculty

Nathaniel Donahue, currently a Samuel I. Golieb Fellow in Legal History at NYU Law, will join the Law School faculty on June 1 as assistant professor of law, Dean Troy McKenzie ’00 announced on March 23. 

“We’re delighted to welcome Nathaniel to the faculty,” says McKenzie. “His teaching and scholarship are an exciting addition to NYU Law’s exceptional strength in legal history.”

Donahue’s work sits at the intersection of private law and public law, with a focus on state and federal administrative law, local government law, and citizenship. His scholarship examines how legal institutions shape state formation, economic development, and democratic governance, including the role of the law governing public officers, tort law, and compulsory public service in American legal history.

Donahue received his AB summa cum laude from Harvard University; an MA and MPhil in history from Yale University; and his JD from Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor on the Yale Law Journal and a Coker Fellow. He expects to receive a PhD in history from Yale University, with a dissertation entitled The Force of Law: Conscription, Governance, and the Organization of Power in Nineteenth-Century America. He clerked for Chief Judge Rowan Wilson on the New York Court of Appeals. 

His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal and the Cornell Law Review and he has received multiple awards, including the Joseph Parker Prize for the best paper in legal history and the Judge William E. Miller Prize for the best paper on the Bill of Rights.

At NYU Law, Donahue will teach Civil Procedure, Torts, and a seminar.