University of St. Thomas

Rob Vischer serves as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.  His scholarship explores the intersection of law, religion, and public policy, with a particular focus on the religious and moral dimensions of professional identity.  His new book project, Love & Justice: Martin Luther King’s Lessons for Lawyers, pushes back against the individualist premises underlying our modern conception of the lawyer’s role by exploring Dr. King’s vision of “the beloved community.”  In an earlier book, Conscience and the Common Good: Reclaiming the Space Between Person and State (Cambridge Univ. Press 2010), Dean Vischer defines and defends the relational dimension of conscience and identifies ways in which our legal system can better maintain the communal venues in which the dictates of conscience are shaped, articulated, and lived out.  His scholarship has appeared in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Illinois Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Florida Law Review, Indiana Law Review, Stanford Journal of Law & Policy, Journal of Law & Religion, Legal Ethics, Journal of Catholic Social Thought, and Journal of Catholic Legal Studies, among others. He also writes for the magazine Commonweal and blogs regularly at Mirror of Justice and Legal Ethics Forum.  He has served as a reviewer for the Journal of Law & Religion and the University of Chicago Press.  Professor Vischer teaches Professional Responsibility, Torts, Family Law, Foundations of Justice, and The Religious Lawyer.  He was voted Professor of the Year by the graduating class in 2008 and 2011, and he received the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2007. 

Professor Vischer came to St. Thomas from St. John's University Law School, where he was an Assistant Professor of Law and Fellow of the Vincentian Center for Church and Society. While at St. John's, Professor Vischer received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching and was voted Professor of the Year by the student body.  Previously, Professor Vischer was associated with Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago, where he practiced corporate litigation.  He clerked for three federal judges: Judge David Ebel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Joan Gottschall of the Northern District of Illinois, and Judge John Wiese of the Court of Federal Claims. He received his B.A. degree, summa cum laude, from the University of New Orleans, and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Buy Professor Vischer's new book, "Conscience and the Common Good," here.

You may download copies of Professor Vischer’s articles here.

Courses Taught

Torts
Family Law
The Religious Lawyer
Professional Responsibility

Mailing Address

MSL 400
1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2015