Pauline Kim
Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law
Pauline Kim is the Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, where she directs the Center for Empirical Research in the Law. She is a nationally recognized expert on workplace law and has emerged as a leading scholar on the legal implications of AI and algorithmic decision-making in employment. She co-authors one of the leading casebooks on employment law and served as an Adviser to the American Law Institute's Restatement of Employment Law. Before entering academia, she clerked for Judge Cecil F. Poole on the Ninth Circuit and worked as a public interest lawyer representing low-income workers in San Francisco.
Teaching Style
Professor Kim is a thorough and methodical Socratic questioner who brings both scholarly rigor and real-world empathy to her teaching of civil procedure and employment law. She cold-calls regularly and is known for probing hypotheticals that connect procedural doctrines to their practical impact on workers and employers. Her classes are well-structured and systematic, and she expects students to understand not only what the rules are but how they function in practice, particularly for vulnerable populations navigating the legal system.
Cold Call Tips
- 1Be ready to apply procedural rules to employment-related fact patterns and think about how procedure affects substantive outcomes
- 2Understand the major federal employment discrimination statutes, especially Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA
- 3Stay current on developments in AI and algorithmic hiring, as Professor Kim is a leading expert in this emerging area
- 4Prepare to discuss empirical evidence about how legal rules operate in practice, not just how they work in theory
Areas of Expertise
Education
- J.D., magna cum laude, Harvard Law School
- A.B., summa cum laude, Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges
Notable Publications
- Work Law: Cases and Materials (casebook, co-authored with Crain, Selmi, and Rogers)
- Adviser, American Law Institute Restatement of Employment Law