About

John V. Orth is the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of Law Emeritus at UNC School of Law. He joined the faculty in 1978 and teaches courses including first-year Property, Trusts & Estates, and Legal History. Orth holds a law degree and a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, and he also earned an A.B. from Oberlin College. His scholarly work encompasses a wide array of topics such as labor law, constitutional law (both federal and state), legal history, wills and trusts, and property law. He is the author of six books, three published by Oxford University Press, and has written ninety articles and book chapters. His writings have been cited by federal and state courts, including the United States Supreme Court and the North Carolina Supreme Court. Orth maintains extensive contacts with Australian law professors and has published several articles comparing American and Australian law. He has also clerked for Judge John Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit and continues to consult on questions concerning property, constitutional law, and wills and trusts.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• History
• Art history
• Combinatorics
• Mathematics
• Library science
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• The Common Law and the Statutes

  2025-10-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Jeremy Bentham and the Challenge of Criticism

  2025-10-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Common Law and the Law Schools

  2025-10-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Power of Innovation

  2025-10-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Lord Mansfield and the Power of Innovation

  2025-10-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• NO AMENDMENT? NO PROBLEM: JUDGES, “INFORMAL AMENDMENT,” AND THE EVOLUTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL MEANING IN THE FEDERAL DEMOCRACIES OF AUSTRALIA, CANADA, INDIA, AND THE UNITED STATES

  Pepperdine Digital Commons (Pepperdine University) · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article considers the way in which judges play a significant role in developing the meaning of a constitution through the exercise of interpretive choices that have the effect of “informally amending” the text. We demonstrate this by examining four written federal democratic constitutions: those of the United States, the first written federal democratic constitution; India, the federal constitution of the largest democracy on earth; and the constitutions of Canada and Australia, both federal and democratic, but emerging from the English unwritten tradition. We divide our consideration of these constitutions into two ideal types, identified by Bruce Ackerman: the “revolutionary” constitutions of the United States and India, and the “adaptive establishmentarian” constitutions of Canada and Australia. In this way, we show that judicial informal amendment changes constitutional meaning in both revolutionary and adaptive settings. We conclude that whatever the origins of a federal democratic constitution, be it revolutionary or adaptive establishmentarian, and whatever the background of the judges and the text with which they work, in the absence of formal amendment, judges use an image of the constitution to give and to change the meaning of a written text over time. This allows a constitution to adapt to changing social, economic, and political conditions where formal amendment, for whatever reason, proves difficult. But, in some cases, it might also leave a federal democracy with a constitution which the Framers did not intend. Whatever the outcome, though, the judges play a central role in the evolution of constitutional meaning over time, for good or for ill.

  PublisherDOI

• The Common Law and the Constitutions

  2025-10-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Challenge of Criticism

  2025-10-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Common Law Tradition in America

  2025-10-31

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Using a thematic approach to American law and legal history, The Common Law Tradition in America introduces readers to the scholars, judges, and critics who made the law at once a stable source of rules and a dynamic system capable of responding to social and economic changes. Beginning with the common law “at home” in England on the eve of the American Revolution, the book introduces readers to the scholarly Sir William Blackstone, the activist judge Lord Mansfield, and the radical critic Jeremy Bentham. Having established the themes of tradition, innovation, and criticism, the book then examines the challenges that faced the common law in America: written constitutions, a new form of legal education, and the rapidly growing number of statutes. Finally, using selected examples, the book demonstrates the continuing influence of these themes in present American law. As befits “a personal statement,” The Common Law Tradition in America is written in a relaxed style, enlivened with engaging anecdotes. It offers law students, researchers of legal history, practicing lawyers, and the general reader an overview of law and legal development, above the technicalities of law school and practice.

  PublisherDOI

• Editor’s Introduction

  2023-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Louis Gottschalk

  10 shared

• Paul Babie

  6 shared

• Krithika Ashok

  4 shared

• Jill Norgren

  2 shared

• Arvind P. Bhanu

  Amity University

  2 shared

• John Gava

  University of Adelaide

  2 shared

• Richard A. Cosgrove

  2 shared

• Jack P. Greene

  1 shared

Education

• B.A., Political Science

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1971

• Other, Law

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1974

• Ph.D., Political Science

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1978