James A. Macleod

Biography

Professor Macleod teaches courses in criminal law, evidence, and torts. He is co-director of the law school’s Center for Law, Language, and Cognition. His current research concerns legal interpretation and concepts that are central to legal theory (such as public meaning, causation, doubt, and knowledge). Macleod’s research takes an “experimental jurisprudence” approach, drawing on empirical methods traditionally associated with cognitive science, linguistics, and psychology to illuminate questions traditionally associated with legal theory.

Macleod’s interest in lay and expert understandings of legal concepts, and his use of empirical methods to study them, stems in part from his extensive work with mock juries and jury consultants during his time litigating mass torts and white collar criminal cases as an associate at Williams & Connolly and Gibson Dunn. Prior to joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty in 2019, Macleod was also an Associate in Law at Columbia Law School and a judicial clerk for the Hon. Raymond J. Lohier, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.