Fredrick Vars
Associate Professor of Law
205-348-0841
fvars@law.ua.edu
Fredrick Vars
Professor Vars joined the faculty in the summer of 2008 after practicing law for six years at Miller Shakman & Beem LLP in Chicago. His practice included all phases of civil litigation, with an emphasis on legal malpractice. Professor Vars teaches Property, Decedents’ Estates, and Mental Health Law. His research interests include mental health and empirical analysis of law. He is a former law clerk to Judge Bruce M. Selya on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Judge Joan B. Gottschall on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Professor Vars also served as Fellow in the Center for the Study of Corporate Law at Yale Law School. Professor Vars received his A.B. from Princeton University (Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) and J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served on the editorial board for The Yale Law Journal. His published work includes:
"Do the Mentally Ill Have a Right to Bear Arms?," 48 Wake Forest L. Rev.(with Amanda Adcock) (forthcoming)
"Irregular Kelo Takings: A Potential Response to Natural Disasters," 44 Urban Lawyer (forthcoming)
"Dementia Patients’ Last Resort Threatened," 60 Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (with Caroline Harada) (forthcoming letter)
"Delineating Sexual Dangerousness," 50 Houston L. Rev. (forthcoming)
"Don't Try This at Home," 36 Vermont L. Rev. 373 (2011) (book review)
"Rethinking the Indefinite Detention of Sex Offenders," 44 Connecticut L. Rev. 161 (2011)
"Subversive Apologia," 35 Law & Psychology Rev. 109 (2011) (symposium)
"Toward a General Theory of Standards of Proof," 60 Catholic Univ. L. Rev. 1 (2010)
"Missing Well: Optimal Targeting of Soccer Shots," 22 Chance 21 (Fall 2009)
"Illusory Consent: When an Incapacitated Patient Agrees to Treatment," 87 Oregon L. Rev. 353 (2008)
"To Insure Prejudice: Racial Disparities in Taxicab Tipping," 114 Yale L.J. 1613 (2005) (with Ian Ayres and Nasser Zakariya)
"Determinants of Citations to Articles in Elite Law Review," 29 J. Legal Studies 427 (2000) (with Ian Ayres) (symposium)
"When Does Private Discrimination Justify Public Affirmative Action," 98 Columbia L. Rev. 1577 (1998) (with Ian Ayres)
"SAT Scores, Race and College Performance: New Evidence From Selective Colleges and Universities," in THE BLACK-WHITE TEST SCORE GAP (Christopher Jencks & Meredith Phillips eds., 1998) (with William G. Bowen)
"Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action: Paradox or Paradigm?," in RACE VERSUS CLASS: THE NEW AFFIRMATIVE ACTION DEBATE (Carol M. Swain ed., 1996)