Derek Webb is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law. Professor Webb writes and teaches in the areas of constitutional law, federal courts, civil and criminal procedure, legal history, and American political thought. He has published over twenty articles or essays in his field, including in the University of Notre Dame Law Review, Law and History Review, the American Journal of Legal History, the Journal of Supreme Court History, Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judicature: The Scholarly Journal for Judges, and the American Journal of Legal Education. He contributed to building the online “Interactive Constitution” of the National Constitution Center and has written for its blog, Constitution Daily.

Prior to joining the faculty in 2024, he was a Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School, the Dean’s Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, and practiced law at Sidley Austin for five years in Washington, D.C. in its Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group. During his time in private practice, he argued cases in the federal courts of appeal and was recognized as “One to Watch” for Appellate Practice in the magazine Best Lawyers of Washington, D.C. in 2021, 2022 and 2023. He is the recipient of both the Warren Burger Prize (2012) and the Sandra Day O'Connor Award for Professional Service (2023) from the American Inns of Court. Before entering private practice, he was a fellow at Stanford Law School’s Constitutional Law Center, a law clerk to Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, an Attorney Advisor to the Rules Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, and a Supreme Court Fellow in the Office of the Counselor to the Chief Justice.

Professor Webb received his B.A. in philosophy from Yale University, Ph.D. in political theory from the University of Notre Dame, and a J.D. from Georgetown University. At Notre Dame he received the Graduate Student Union Teaching Assistant of the Year Award. And at Georgetown he received six CALI Awards for best papers or exams in six different subjects, and was on the winning team of the Spong Moot Court Tournament at William and Mary Law School, where he received the award for Best Brief for Respondent. He has also held other academic fellowships at Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, where he was the inaugural Wilson Carey McWilliams Fellow in American Politics and Political Theory.

Professor Webb is also active in various civic and academic societies. He is a member of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, a member of the Board of Directors of the Abraham Lincoln Institute, and a Fellow of Davenport College at Yale University.