Christian Burset

Christian Burset

Visiting Professor

Christian Burset is a legal historian whose research focuses on the British Empire and the early United States. His first book, An Empire of Laws: Legal Pluralism in British Colonial Policy (Yale University Press 2023), examines how the eighteenth-century British Empire used different forms of law to shape the development of its colonies. His other work has explored topics including the historical relationship between jurisprudence and party politics, the nature of legal authority in the common-law tradition, and the interaction between law and economic change.

Burset has taught at Notre Dame Law School since 2018. He was previously a Golieb Fellow in Legal History at New York University School of Law, and clerked for the Hon. José A. Cabranes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Hon. Neil M. Gorsuch of the U.S. Supreme Court.

He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.D. in history from Yale University, and an A.B. in history, with highest honors, from Princeton University.

Education

Yale University

PhD (history), 2018

Yale Law School

JD, 2014

Princeton University

AB (history), with highest honors, 2007

Experience

Notre Dame Law School

Professor of Law, 2023 – present
Associate Professor of Law, 2018 – 2023

Hon. Neil M. Gorsuch, Supreme Court of the United States

Law Clerk, 2024 – 2025

New York University School of Law

Samuel I. Golieb Fellow in Legal History, 2017 – 2018

Hon. José A. Cabranes, US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Law Clerk, 2015 – 2016

The Boston Consulting Group

Associate, 2007 – 2009
Summer Associate, Summer 2006

  • ASLH Virtual Book Club, December 2023
  • American Society for Legal History, October 2023
  • Festschrift Conference for Professor James Whitman, Yale Law School, October 2023
  • University of Chicago Public Law and Legal Theory Workshop, January 2023
  • American Society for Legal History annual meeting, November 2022
  • North American Conference on British Studies annual meeting, November 2022
  • “Arbitration in Britain and its Empire: Developments and Divergences,” Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London), October 2022
  • British Legal History Conference, Belfast, July 2022
  • “Beyond the Pale: Legal Histories on the Edges of Empires,” Maynooth, Ireland, June 2022
  • Legal History Workshop, February 2022
  • Insurance and the Slave Trade in the Long Eighteenth Century,” American Society for Legal History annual meeting, November 2021
  • Chicagoland Junior Scholars Conference, October 2021
  • Federalist Society Junior Scholars Colloquium, June 2021
  • British and Imperial History Workshop, April 2021
  • Legal History Workshop, April 2021
  • American Society of Comparative Law annual meeting, October 2020
  • Chicagoland Junior Scholars Conference, October 2020
  • “The Dynamic Eighteenth Century,” University of Chicago, July 2020
  • AALS annual meeting, section on European Law, January 2020
  • Federalist Society Annual Faculty Conference, January 2020
  • American Society for Legal History annual meeting, November 2019
  • Rocky Mountain Junior Scholars Forum, November 2019
  • Chicagoland Junior Scholars Conference, September 2019
  • Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, March 2019
  • “History and Theory in the Development of Public Law,” Notre Dame London Law Centre, February 2019
  • “Arguing for the Rule of Law: Using the Hebrew Bible and Caricatures of Foreigners in British and Spanish America” Symposium, Newberry Library, October 2018
  • Canadian Law and Economics Association, September 2017
  • “Religious Critiques of Law,” Pepperdine University School of Law, March 2017
  • Institute of Advanced Legal Studies seminar, University of London, January 2017

Bar Admissions

Supreme Court of the United States; New York

Professional Memberships

Association of American Law Schools
American Society for Legal History
Selden Society

Service

Appointments Subcommittee, Notre Dame Law School (2023 – 2024) (vice chair, 2024)
Clerkship Committee, Notre Dame Law School (2018 – 2020, 2021 – 2024)
Surrency Prize Committee, American Society for Legal History (2021 – 2023)
Admissions Committee, Notre Dame Law School (2021)
Editor (representing Notre Dame), American Society of Comparative Law (2020 – present)