Professor of Law

Margaret H. Lemos is a scholar of constitutional law, legal institutions, and procedure. She came to Duke Law in 2011 from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she was an associate professor.

Lemos focuses her scholarship on the institutions of law interpretation and enforcement and their effects on substantive rights. She writes in four related fields: federalism; administrative law, including the relationship between courts and agencies; statutory interpretation; and civil procedure. Her articles have been published in the Supreme Court Review as well as in the New York University, Texas, Minnesota, and Vanderbilt law reviews.

Prior to joining the Cardozo faculty, Lemos was a Furman Fellow and program coordinator at New York University School of Law, a Bristow Fellow at the Office of the Solicitor General, and a law clerk for Judge Kermit V. Lipez, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. She graduated summa cum laude from New York University School of Law, where she was senior notes editor of the New York University Law Review.

Students at Cardozo voted Lemos the “best first-year teacher” in 2010 and in 2011.