About Marah Stith
Marah Stith Mcleod trained at two of the country's most prominent universities. She completed her undergraduate work in political theory at Harvard University in 1998 and earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2006. The academic route she chose early on foreshadowed a career that has moved between high-level government work, private practice and legal scholarship.
Her legal career began with a federal appellate clerkship. In 2006 she served as a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She then joined the U.S. Department of Justice as a Lawyer-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel in 2007. Those years placed her close to the machinery of federal law and regulation.
In 2009 she clerked at the Supreme Court of the United States for Justice Clarence Thomas. That role followed her time at the Department of Justice and preceded a stint in private practice. In 2011 she worked as an associate at Sidley Austin LLP. Her resume reflects a mix of appellate, executive-branch and commercial-law experience.
McLeod moved into academia after those years in practice. In 2014 she held a post-doctoral research scholar position and lectured in law at Columbia Law School. She then joined the faculty at Notre Dame Law School as an associate professor. Her teaching and scholarship bridge doctrinal work and institutional analysis. She writes about constitutional structure, the role of the federal courts and administrative law questions that arise at the intersection of branches of government.
Her scholarship is aimed at clarifying institutional roles and doctrinal limits. She has taught courses that examine constitutional design and the practical operation of courts and agencies. Students and colleagues note an attention to doctrinal detail and to the institutional consequences of legal rules, rather than sweeping theoretical claims.
McLeod is admitted to practice in New York. She has moved between government, private practice and academic settings, carrying practical courtroom and agency experience into classroom and scholarly work. She teaches and researches constitutional law and administrative law at Notre Dame Law School.
