Biography

Professor (by courtesy) of History

A scholar whose research focuses on the evolution of commercial law and civil procedure, Amalia D. Kessler (MA ’96, PhD ’01) seeks to explore the roots of modern market culture and present-day process norms. In 2007–08, she received a Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, supporting research on her current book project concerning the 19th-century origins of American adversarial legal culture. In 2008, her book, A Revolution in Commerce: The Parisian Merchant Court and the Rise of Commercial Society in Eighteenth-Century France (Yale University Press, 2007), was awarded the American Historical Association’s J. Russell Major Prize for the best book in English on any aspect of French history. In 2011, she received the Hessel Yntema Prize from the American Society of Comparative Law for the “most outstanding” article by a scholar under 40 appearing in the previous year’s volume of the American Journal of Comparative Law. And in 2005, she received the Surrency Prize from the American Society for Legal History for the best article in the previous year’s volume of the Law and History Review. Professor Kessler has been a visiting professor at both the Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II) and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. She has an appointment (by courtesy) with the Stanford University Department of History.

Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2003, Professor Kessler was a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and clerked for Judge Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Key Works

• Amalia Kessler, Marginalization and Myth: The Corporatist Roots of France's Forgotten Elective Judiciary, 58 American Journal of Comparative Law 679 (2010)
• Amalia Kessler, Deciding Against Conciliation: The Nineteenth-Century Rejection of a European Transplant and the Rise of a Distinctively American Ideal of Adversarial Adjudication, 10 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 423 (2009).
• Amalia D. Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce: The Parisian Merchant Court and the Rise of Commercial Society in Eighteenth-Century France, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, October 2007. 408 pages.
• Amalia D. Kessler, Our Inquisitorial Tradition: Equity Procedure, Due Process, and the Search for an Alternative to the Adversarial, 90 Cornell Law Review 1181 (2005).
• Amalia D. Kessler, Enforcing Virtue: Social Norms and Self-Interest in an Eighteenth-Century Merchant Court, 22 Law and History Review, 71 (Spring 2004).
• Amalia D. Kessler, Limited Liability in Context: Lessons From the French Origins of the American Limited Partnership, 32 Journal of Legal Studies 511 (June 2003).

Courses & Programs

Courses

• Civil Procedure
• Comparative Law
• Legal History Workshop
• Legal Studies Workshop

Publications & Cases

Recent Publications View All

• Amaliia D. Kessler, Stuck in Arbitration, New York Times, March 7, 2012, p. A27.
• Amalia Kessler, Constructing an Ideal: Chancellor Kent, Justice Story, and the Surprising Revival of Equity in Early Nineteenth-Century America, L’Équité et ses Métamorphoses (Annuaire de l'Institut Michel Villey 2010, v. 2) (2011).
• Amalia Kessler, The Making and Debunking of Legal Tradition (Comparative Law Symposium), Roger Williams University Law Review (forthcoming 2010).
• Amalia Kessler, Marginalization and Myth: The Corporatist Roots of France's Forgotten Elective Judiciary, 58 American Journal of Comparative Law 679 (2010)
• Amalia Kessler, Power, Not Progress: An Alternative Reading of L’Hôpital’s Legal Reforms, 28 Law and History Review 837 (2010)
• Amalia D. Kessler, Marginalization and Myth: The Corporatist Roots of France's Forgotten Elective Judiciary, Stanford Public Law Working Paper, No. 1470271 (October 2009).
• Amalia Kessler, Book Review (Michael Sonenscher, Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution), 83 Business History Review 426 (2009).
• Amalia Kessler, Deciding Against Conciliation: The Nineteenth-Century Rejection of a European Transplant and the Rise of a Distinctively American Ideal of Adversarial Adjudication, 10 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 423 (2009).
• Amalia Kessler, Approches procédurales et institutionnelles de la justice: La réponse contrastée américaine et française á l’augmentation des procés civils “orientés public”, in Droit et Èconomie (38e Congrès du Mouvement Jeune Notariat), Paris: Mouvement Jeune Notariat, November 2007.
• Amalia D. Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce: The Parisian Merchant Court and the Rise of Commercial Society in Eighteenth-Century France, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, October 2007. 408 pages.

Affiliations & Honors

Professional Affiliations

• Reviewer, Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship Program (2011-12)
• Co-Chair, Program Committee of the American Society for Legal History (2011)
• Invited Member, Hurst Prize Committee, Law and Society Association (2011)
• Chair, American Association of Law Schools Section on Comparative Law (2010)
• Elected Member, Executive Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law (2009-10; 2010-11)
• Elected Member, Nominating Committee of the American Society for Legal History (2008-2010)
• Co-Director, Law and History Workshop, Stanford Humanities Center (2008-09)
• Local Organizer, Annual Meeting of Mouvement Jeune Notariat (organization of French notaries/transactional lawyers), San Francisco, CA (Nov. 18-24, 2007)
• Associate Editor (Book Reviews, Non-Americas), Law and History Review (starting in May 2007)
• Invited Member, Program Committee of the American Society for Legal History (2006; 2010)
• Admitted to New York and Massachusetts Bars (2000)
• Elected Member, Executive Committee of the American Association of Law Schools Section on Comparative Law
• Director/Editor (representing Stanford), American Society of Comparative Law
• Member, American Society for Legal History, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Law and Society Association, American Historical Association, & Society for French Historical Studies
• Manuscript Reviewer, Yale University Press; Oxford University Press; Law and History Review; The Journal of Economic History; Law and Social Inquiry; The Journal of Modern History

Honors and Awards

• Winner, Hessel Yntema Prize, awarded by the American Society of Comparative Law for the “most outstanding” article by a scholar under 40 appearing in volume 58 of the American Journal of Comparative Law (2011)
• Winner, J. Russell Major Prize, awarded by the American Historical Association for the best book in English on any aspect of French history (2008)
• Invitee, Workshop on Common Law Legal Transplants, Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University (May-August 2008)
• Recipient, Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies (2007-2008), supporting one year of research
• Recipient, 2005 Surrency Prize for "Enforcing Virtue: Social Norms and Self-Interest in an Eighteenth-Century Merchant Court, 22 Law and History Review 71 (2004)
• Recipient, Special Commendation Award, U.S. Department of Justice (December 2002)
• Recipient, Performance Award, U.S. Department of Justice (December 2002)
• Recipient, Star Award for legal representation, U.S. Department of the Interior (September 2002)
• Recipient, Dean’s Research Funds—research on 18th-century French merchant law and practice (Cambridge, MA, Summer-Fall 1999)
• Recipient, Yale Center for Studies in Law, Economics & Public Policy/Olin Research Grant—research in 18th-century merchant-court archives (Paris, Summer 1997 )
• Recipient, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Scholarship (Regensburg, Summer 1995)
• Recipient, Carolyn E. Agger Endowment for Women in Law, Postgraduate Grant
• Recipient, Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Summer Research
• Recipient, Lucy Allen Patton Senior Prize
• Recipient, John Harvard and Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Scholarships
• Recipient, Detur Prize
• Recipient, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies Research Grant