Payvand Ahdout

Payvand Ahdout is an associate professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Her work centers on structural constitutional law and modern uses of judicial power. In particular, she examines how litigation encounters, constrains, and counters uses of executive power. Focusing on the structures that compose and the institutions that are before the courts, her work incorporates multiple legal disciplines including constitutional law, civil procedure, and criminal law and procedure. Her current projects study the phenomena of litigating federal powers disputes as well as judicial agenda-setting outside of the federal courts.

Ahdout’s article, "Separation-of-Powers Avoidance," received the annual prize from the AALS Federal Courts Section for the best paper on federal courts by an untenured professor. In 2022, the Yale Law Journal honored Ahdout as the journal’s inaugural Emerging Scholar of the Year for her “significant contributions to legal thought and scholarship” and her work’s “potential to drive improvements in the law.” Her work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Columbia Law Review.

Ahdout graduated with highest distinction from the University of Virginia, where she was a Jefferson Scholar, with a BA in economics and government. She holds a law degree from Columbia Law School, where she was a James Kent Scholar and a recipient of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Prize. She has held fellowships at Columbia Law School and New York University School of Law. Ahdout served as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General. She has also served as a law clerk to Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court of the United States and to Debra Ann Livingston on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.