Experts

Saikrishna Prakash

Fast Facts

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • Domestic Affairs
  • Law and Justice
  • Governance
  • Political Parties and Movements
  • Politics
  • The Presidency
  • Supreme Court

Saikrishna Prakash, faculty senior fellow, is the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law at the University of Virginia Law School. His scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches constitutional law, foreign relations Law and presidential powers at the University of Virginia Law School.

Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. After law school, he clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at the Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Chicago Law School. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Among Prakash's articles are "50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend," published in the Yale Law Journal; "The Imbecilic Executive," published in the Virginia Law Review; and "The Sweeping Domestic War Powers of Congress," published in the Michigan Law Review. He is the author of The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument against Its Ever-Expanding Powers and Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive.

Saikrishna Prakash News Feed

"The answers to these questions would reveal Judge Jackson’s approach to constitutional interpretation without tipping her hand on concrete cases. These issues have been at the center of controversies about the court’s methods and its role in society. Her answers would give us insight into her perception of the court’s proper role in society and what kind of justice she would be."
Saikrishna Prakash POLITICO Magazine
This year, the U.S. Supreme Court looking at hot button and controversial topics, from abortion to guns. There is also the question of appointing a new justice before the midterm elections in November. Experts from the Miller Center at the University of Virginia are weighing in on the cases that have the potential to reshape the future of America and discussing who's likely to get President Joe Biden's first high court nomination. First up, is "the political stench" of overturning a landmark case: Planned Parenthood v. Casey. "Most of the observers looking at this case believe they are either going to peel Casey back or overturn it. And I bet overturning it,” said Saikrishna Prakash, another Senior Fellow at the Miller Center.
Saikrishna Prakash CBS19
President Biden and former president Donald Trump are locked in another fierce battle — this one not involving electoral votes but rather whether a president may invoke and insist upon “executive privilege” even after he has left office, in defiance of the new incumbent.
Saikrishna Prakash The Washington Post
Why did the powers of the executive accrete over the course of the Constitutional Convention? Credit (or blame) George Washington and the determined delegates who relentlessly pressed for a robust executive.
Saikrishna Prakash
Judicial amendments to the Constitution without ready means to overturn them" can be a problem, noted Saikrishna Prakash, speaking at Harvard Law's Rapport Forum. Prakash is the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law at UVA
Saikrishna Prakash Harvard Law Today
Three Supreme Court experts examine the future of the high court under the Biden administration. Among other topics, they will discuss upcoming court cases and how the addition of Amy Coney Barrett might affect some of these outcomes and the overall makeup of the court; whether the Biden administration might more add more justices and if so, who might be on a short list; and the impact Biden might have on the lower federal courts through appointments.
Saikrishna Prakash Miller Center Presents