Professor Leubsdorf earned his B.A. in 1963 from Harvard, his M.A. in English in 1964 from Stanford, and his J.D. in 1967 from Harvard. Professor Leubsdorf was a member of the faculty at the Boston University School of Law prior to joining the Rutgers faculty in 1985 and has been visiting professor at Columbia, University of California at Berkeley, Cornell, Cardozo, New York University, and Harvard Law Schools, and a Fulbright Scholar in Paris. He has written a book on French legal ethics and articles on such topics as civil procedure, the legal profession, remedies, and law and literature. He was associate reporter for the Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers.

Evidence law is typically appraised from the standpoint of a judge deciding whether to admit evidence at trial. But in his recent article in the Iowa Law Review, Professor John Leubsdorf, Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, turns that perspective around and considers how evidence law shapes the behavior of parties to a dispute before trial. “Evidence Law as a System of Incentives” recommends that lawmakers, lawyers, and scholars consider not just the impact of evidentiary principles on the particular case before a court but also how these principles can reach forward to affect peoples’ behavior in anticipating, conducting, litigating, and settling future disputes.