Michael Coenen
Former LSU Law and current Seton Hall Law professor Michael Coenen will deliver the main address at the LSU Law Center’s 2019 Commencement ceremony, scheduled for Friday, May 24, at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
“The LSU Law Center is honored to welcome back Professor Coenen and have him address our graduates as our 2019 Commencement speaker,” LSU Law dean Tom Galligan said. “Through his teaching, scholarship and leadership, he has positively impacted the legal education of our 2019 graduating class. It’s only fitting that he gives them one final talk before they graduate from law school.”
Coenen taught at the LSU Law Center from 2013-18. A favorite among students, Coenen was voted Professor of the Year by LSU Law students in 2014-15 and 2017-18. He was also honored with the LSU Alumni Association Rising Faculty Research Award in 2016.
Coenen joined Seton Hall Law in 2018 as a tenured full Professor. His work focuses on the structure and implementation of public law norms, paying special attention to the challenges that courts confront when translating abstract legal dictates into workable rules of public law doctrine.
He teaches courses in administrative law, comparative constitutional law, U.S. constitutional law, constitutional theory, federal courts, and state and local taxation. He has a national reputation as a scholar of U.S. constitutional law, having published in the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Minnesota Law Review.
He was also a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. He holds an A.B. in Music from Princeton University, where he graduated summa cum laude, and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an Articles Editor for the Yale Law Journal. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Past Commencement speakers of the LSU Law Center include Louisiana Governors John Bel Edwards and Mike Foster, Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson, Former U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston and political commentator James Carville, among others.
The LSU Law Center’s Commencement ceremonies will take place on Friday, May 24, at 10 a.m. at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Visit LSU Law’s Commencement website for more information .
