Robert K. Rasmussen

J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law and Political Science
Last Updated: September 21, 2023

Robert K. Rasmussen joined USC Gould School of Law in August 2007.  Rasmussen’s scholarly expertise is focused on the interaction of market forces and corporate reorganization law, and his most recent work addresses fundamental changes in corporate reorganization practice. He teaches Contracts and Realities of Commercial Lending. Rasmussen was named the J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law and Political Science in 2015.

Rasmussen, who served as dean from 2007 to 2015, earned his JD, cum laude, from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was comment editor of the University of Chicago Law Review, and his BA, magna cum laude, from Loyola University of Chicago. He clerked for the Honorable John C. Godbold, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and worked in the Civil Division Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, handling litigation in the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court before joining the Vanderbilt faculty. He also has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and University of Michigan law schools.

A widely cited scholar, Rasmussen is the author or co-author of dozens of articles published in some of the country’s leading law journals, including the Supreme Court Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the Michigan Law Review and the Yale Law Journal. He has played a role in shaping the jurisprudence in his field as the principal author of an amicus curiae brief on behalf of nine law professors in the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court case Bank of America v. 203 North LaSalle Street Partnership; was the principal author of an amicus curiae brief on behalf of three law professors in Integrated Telecom Express, Inc., a 2004 case decided by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals; and was the principal author of an amicus curiae brief on behalf of seven law professors in Owens Corning, a 2005 case also decided by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a member of the American Law Institute.