Biography
Philip Soper, the James V. Campbell Professor of Law, began his academic career at Michigan in 1973 where he teaches courses in contracts and legal and moral philosophy. He is the author of A Theory of Law and The Ethics of Deference, as well as numerous articles in legal and moral philosophy. Professor Soper graduated, summa cum laude, from Washington University in St. Louis in 1964 and later received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy from the same institution. He received his J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1969, where he was Supreme Court and note editor on the Harvard Law Review. The following year he served as law clerk to Justice Byron R. White of the Supreme Court of the United States. Following the clerkship, he spent a year studying philosophy at Oxford University, and then practiced two years in the General Counsel’s Office at the Council on Environmental Quality in Washington, D.C.