Lee Epstein is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Law at Northwestern University. She is the author or coauthor of more than seventy articles and essays, as well as fourteen books, including the Constitutional Law for a Changing America series (moving into its sixth edition; winner of the Teaching and Mentoring Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association), The Supreme Court Compendium (now in its fourth edition; winner of a Special Recognition Honor from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association and an Outstanding Academic Book Award from Choice), and The Choices Justices Make (winner of the Pritchett award for the Best Book on Law and Courts). Her most recent book, Advice and Consent: The Politics of Judicial Appointments (Oxford University Press, 2005) received extensive media coverage, with its findings reported in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, among other outlets. Current projects include Strategic Defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court, which examines the circumstances leading lower courts to comply with/defy higher courts; and Ideological Drift, which explores the extent to which Supreme Court justices remain committed to a particular doctrinal course over time.

Over the past decade she has received ten grants from the National Science Foundation to conduct research on various topics pertaining to law and courts, including interest group participation in litigation and strategic interaction among judges on collegial courts. She is currently working with the papers of Justice Harry Blackmun for a book on agenda setting on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dr. Epstein is a former chair of the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association and a past President of the Midwest Political Science Association. She also serves (or has served) on the Board of Directors of the American Judicature Society, the Executive Council of the Southern Political Science Association, the Board of Trustees of the Law & Society Association, and on the editorial boards or advisory panels of the American Journal of Political Science, the American Political Science Review, American Politics Research, I•CON: The International Journal of Constitutional Law, Law and Social Inquiry, Law & Society Review, Political Research Quarterly, and Social Science Quarterly.

Her honors and awards include: the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award at Washington University; Alumni Board of Governors Distinguished Faculty Award; Professor of the Year Award from Washington University's Undergraduate Political Science Association; Faculty of the Year Award from Washington University's Student Union; Outstanding Faculty Member from Washington University's Women's Panhellenic Association; the Rotunda Teaching Award from SMU; and the Margareta Deschner Teaching Award from SMU. Professor Epstein received her undergraduate degree in political science (with High Honors, 1980) and her Ph.D. from Emory University (1983).