SelectedWorks of Patrick McKinley Brennan

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Patrick McKinley Brennan

Villanova University School of Law

• Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
• Professor of Law
• John F. Scarpa Chair in Catholic Legal Studies
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Biography 

Patrick McKinley Brennan joined the Villanova faculty in 2004 as the inaugural holder of
the John F. Scarpa Chair in Catholic Legal Studies and now also serves as the Associate
Dean for Academic Affairs and Director of the Joint J.D. –M.B.A. Program. Professor
Brennan works in the tradition of reflection on natural law and natural rights to examine
a wide range of questions in jurisprudence and public law, including sovereignty,
equality, authority, the rule of law, constitutionalism, the family, and punishment and
forgiveness, as well as topics in administrative law, constitutional law, federal
jurisdiction, religious liberty and the liberty of the church, and criminal law. He
regularly teaches constitutional law, administrative law, federal courts, criminal law,
and a range of courses in jurisprudence and in law and religion. Professor Brennan has
published three books and more than fifty articles and book chapters, and he is currently
completing three books. His monograph The Sovereignty of the Good: An Essay on Law,
Church, and Authority will be published by Oxford University Press. His casebook (with
William Brewbaker III), Christian Legal Thought: Cases and Materials, is under contract
with Foundation Press. He is co-editing (with H. Jefferson Powell) Legal Affinities:
Studies in the Legal Form of Thought, which will be published by Carolina Academic Press.
His earlier books are By Nature Equal: The Anatomy of a Western Insight (Princeton
University Press 1999) (with J. Coons), Civilizing Authority: Society, State, and Church
(Lexington 2007), and The Vocation of the Child (Eerdmans 2008). Professor Brennan’s
articles and essays have appeared in the law reviews of the University of Pennsylvania,
University of Michigan, Boston College, Emory University, University of Notre Dame,
Villanova University, and Georgetown University, among many others. They have also
appeared in such peer-reviewed journals as the American Journal of Jurisprudence, Review
of Metaphysics, Law and Philosophy, Punishment and Society, Journal of Law and Religion,
American Catholic Studies, Journal of Catholic Legal Studies, and Journal of Catholic
Social Thought, among many others. Before coming to Villanova, Professor Brennan was for
eight years a faculty member in the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State
University, where for several years he served as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and
Research and later as Vice Dean. Previously, Brennan was associated with major law firms
in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Brennan clerked for Hon. John T. Noonan, Jr., on
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. A native of
California, Brennan earned his J.D. from Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall), U.C. Berkeley, where
he won many awards and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Prior to law school, Brennan
earned an M.A. and pursued doctoral course work in philosophy at the University of
Toronto, taking many of his courses there in the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies. He was graduated from Yale College with a B.A. in philosophy with honors and
distinction in the major. At Yale, Brennan also studied Greek and Latin and won the Jacob
Cooper Prize for the best essay on ancient Greek philosophy. Professor Brennan has been a
visiting professor in the Boston College Law School and a senior research fellow at the
Robbins Collection of Canon and Civil Law at U.C. Berkeley. Brennan has also been a
scholar in residence at the Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America,
where he delivered the Brendan F. Brown Lecture in 2006. Brennan has delivered the Yves
Simon Lecture at the University of Chicago and the Donald M. Giannella Lecture at
Villanova University. At Villanova, Brennan organizes the annual John F. Scarpa
Conference on Law, Politics, and Culture. Keynote speakers have included the late Avery
Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Justice Antonin Scalia, Martha Nussbaum, Joseph Vining, John
Ferejohn, and William Eskridge. Other speakers have included Jeremy Waldron, Geoff Stone,
Jesse Choper, Lee Bollinger, Roderick Hills, Jane Schacter, Kristin Hickman, Jefferson
Powell, Amy Uelmen, Richard Garnett, Kent Greenawalt, and many others. John Finnis will
deliver the keynote address in 2011. 

Courses and Seminars: • Constitutional Law • Criminal Law • Justice and Rights •
Administrative Law • Jurisprudence • "Law, Politics, and Human Nature: The 

Teachings of Modern Christianity" 

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