University of St. Thomas

After law school, Sisk entered into public service, serving in all three branches of the federal government: legislative assistant to a United States Senator, law clerk to a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and appellate specialist with the United States Department of Justice. Subsequent to government service, he was the head of the appellate department for a Seattle law firm. As an appellate attorney, Sisk has handled appeals cases before ten of the thirteen federal courts of appeals and several state appellate courts. Sisk joined the faculty of the Drake University Law School in 1991, where he was appointed the Richard M. & Anita Calkins Distinguished Professor.

Sisk is a nationally-recognized scholar on the subjects of civil litigation with the federal government and empirical (statistical) analysis of judicial decision making; he also writes about federal courts, legal ethics, and constitutional law. He is the author of the casebook, “Litigation With the Federal Government,” which is published by Foundation Press, and a treatise by the same name, which is published by ALI-ABA. Sisk’s empirical work on court decisions was honored with the Article Prize from the Law and Society Association in 1999.

He has remained an active member of the practicing bar, primarily in appellate litigation and as an expert witness or consultant on legal ethics. In recent years, he has briefed cases before the U.S. Supreme Court on civil suits against the federal government and jurisdiction in the Court of Federal Claims. He served as reporter for the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct Drafting Committee appointed by the Iowa Supreme Court to draft the new set of ethics rules to govern lawyers in Iowa. Sisk also is an elected member of the American Law Institute.

Representative Scholarship

Litigation With the Federal Government:  Cases and Materials (with Teacher’s Manual) (Foundation Press, 2000) (2d ed., 2008).

Litigation with the Federal Government (ALI-ABA, 4th ed., 2006).

Lawyer and Judicial Ethics:  Iowa Practice (with Mark S. Cady, Justice, Iowa Supreme Court) (Thomson-West, 2009).

The Continuing Drift of Federal Sovereign Immunity Jurisprudence, 50 William & Mary Law Review 517 (2008)

The Quantitative Moment and the Qualitative Opportunity:  Legal Studies of Judicial Decisionmaking (Book Review), 93 Cornell Law Review 873 (2008).

Uprooting the Pruneyard, Rutgers Law Journal (38 Rutgers Law Journal 1145 (Annual Issue on State Constitutional Law) (2008)).

Change and Continuity in Attorney-Client Confidentiality:  The New Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct, 55 Drake Law Review 347 (2007).

John Paul II:  The Quintessential Religious Witness in the Public Square, 45 Journal of Catholic Legal Studies 241 (2007).

A Primer on the Doctrine of Federal Sovereign Immunity, 58 Oklahoma Law Review 439 (2006).

How Traditional and Minority Religions Fare in the Courts: Empirical Evidence from the Religious Liberty Cases, 76 University of Colorado Law Review 1021 (2005) (symposium essay).

The Willful Judging of Harry Blackmun, 70 Missouri Law Review 1049 (2005) (symposium essay).

Judges and Ideology: Public and Academic Debates About Statistical Measures, with Michael Heise, 99 Northwestern University Law Review 743 (2005).

Signaling and Precedent in Federal District Court Opinions, with Andrew P. Morriss and Michael Heise, 13 Supreme Court Economic Review 63 (2005).

Abortion, Bishops, Eucharist, and Politicians: A Question of Communion, with Charles J. Reid, Jr., 43 Catholic Lawyer 255 (2004).

Searching for the Soul of Judicial Decisionmaking: An Empirical Study of Religious Freedom Decisions, with Michael Heise and Andrew P. Morriss, 65 Ohio State Law Journal 491 (2004).

The Tapestry Unravels: Statutory Waivers of Sovereign Immunity and Money Claims Against the United States, 71 George Washington Law Review 602 (2003).

Above the Rules: A Response to Epstein and King, with Frank Cross and Michael Heise, 69 University of Chicago Law Review 135 (2002).

Teaching Litigation With the Federal Government, 49 Journal of Legal Education 275 (1999).

Charting the Influences on the Judicial Mind: An Empirical Study of Judicial Reasoning, with Michael Heise and Andrew P. Morriss, 73 New York University Law Review 1377 (1998).

The Essentials of the Equal Access to Justice Act: Court Awards of Attorney’s Fees for Unreasonable Government Conduct (Part Two), 56 Louisiana Law Review 1 (1995).

The Essentials of the Equal Access to Justice Act: Court Awards of Attorney’s Fees for Unreasonable Government Conduct (Part One), 55 Louisiana Law Review 217 (1994).

Questioning Dialogue by Judicial Decree: A Different Theory of Constitutional Review and Moral Discourse, 46 Rutgers Law Review 1691 (1994).

Courses Taught

Civil Procedure I
Civil Procedure II
Professional Responsibility
Litigation with the Federal Government

Mailing Address

MSL 400
1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2015