Faculty Profile

Thomas R. Lee is the Rex & Maureen Rawlinson Professor of Law at Brigham Young University. He teaches courses on civil procedure and legislation and seminars on the U.S. Supreme Court and on law and linguistics. His recent scholarship focuses on the use of linguistic theory and tools to lend transparency and empiricism to the process of textual interpretation. Lee’s work has been featured in publications including the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, and the Penn Law Review, and has been cited in judicial opinions in the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts across the nation.

Lee graduated with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 1991. He went on to clerk for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Clarence Thomas at the United States Supreme Court.

In 2004-2005, Lee served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He was appointed as Justice on the Utah Supreme Court in 2010 and served in that position through 2022. And he served as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure from 2018-2022.

Lee has taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Chicago and Harvard. He consults on matters at the intersection of law and linguistics through Corpus Juris Advisors LLC and occasionally participates in litigation as a Senior Academic Affiliate at the Shaerr Jaffe law firm.