Gregory Keating

William T. Dalessi Professor of Law and PhilosophyUSC Gould School of Law

gkeating@law.usc.edu
Work: (213) 740-2565
Fax: (213) 740-5502
Room: 434
Personal Website: http://works.bepress.com/gregorykeating

last updated Thu, May 2, 2013

Gregory C. Keating joined the USC Law faculty in 1991 and was promoted to full professor in 1996; he also holds a joint appointment with the USC Department of Philosophy. He teaches torts, legal ethics, and seminars in legal and political philosophy.

Professor Keating graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College, earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in political philosophy from Princeton University, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. After graduating from Harvard, he practiced law in Massachusetts for five years before joining USC Law. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and at the Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Professor Keating is an editor of a torts casebook and writes on torts, professional responsibility and legal theory. He has published articles on the morality of reasonable risk imposition and the law of negligence more generally; on the history of and moral justification for strict liability in tort; on why justice requires that we take inefficiently great precaution against significant risks of death and devastating injury; and on issues of professional responsibility, with particular attention to the problems that confront practicing lawyers. Some of his recent titles include “Putting Duty in its Place," with Dilan A. Esper, (Loyola Law Review, 2008) (Symposium: Frontiers of Tort Liability), “Pricelessness and Life: An Essay for Guido Calabresi,” (Maryland Law Review, 2005) (Symposium: Calabresi’s Costs of Accidents), and “Rawlsian Fairness and Regime Choice in the Law of Accidents” (Fordham Law Review, 2004) (Symposium: Rawls and the Law).

A former teaching fellow at Harvard and Princeton universities, Professor Keating served as an officer of the Section on Jurisprudence of the American Association of Law Schools. He also has consulted with the County of Los Angeles on issues of professional responsibility and conflicts of interest.

Articles

"The Priority of Respect Over Repair," 18 Legal Theory 293 (2012).
"Nuisance as a Strict Liability Wrong," 4.3 Journal of Tort Law 2 (2012).
"Recovering Rylands," 61 DePaul Law Review 543 (2012).
“Is Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress a Freestanding Tort?” 44 Wake Forest Law Review 1131 (2009).
"Putting Duty in its Place: A Reply to Professors Goldberg and Zipursky," 41 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 1225 (2008) (with Dilan A. Esper).
"The Heroic Enterprise of Asbestos Adjudication," 37 Southwestern Law Review 623 (2008).
"Personal Inviolability and Private Law," 1.2 Journal of Tort Law 4 (2007).
"Strict Liability and the Mitigation of Moral Luck," 1.4 Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy 1 (2006).
"Abusing 'Duty'," 79 Southern California Law Review 265 (2006) (with Dilan A. Esper).
"Property Right and Tortious Wrong in Vincent v. Lake Erie," Issues in Legal Scholarship 6 (2005).
“Pricelessness and Life: An Essay for Guido Calabresi.” 64 Maryland Law Review 101 (2005).
"Rawlsian Fairness and Regime Choice in the Law of Accidents" 72 Fordham Law Review 1857 (2004).
"Vexing Situations: Ethics and International Practice" 13 The California International Practitioner 10 (2004) (with Neal Millard and Robert E. Lutz).
"Irreparable Injury and Extraordinary Precaution: The Safety and Feasibility Norms in American Accident Law." 4 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 1 (2003).
"Pressing Precaution Beyond the Point of Cost-Justification." 56 Vanderbilt Law Review 653 (2003).
"The Theory of Enterprise Liability and Common Law Strict Liability." 54 Vanderbilt Law Review 1285 (2001).
"Distributive and Corrective Justice in the Tort Law of Accidents." 74 Southern California Law Review 193 (2000).
"The Idea of Fairness in the Law of Enterprise Liability." 95 Michigan Law Review 1266 (1997).
"Reasonableness and Rationality in Negligence Theory." 48 Stanford Law Review 311 (1996).
"Fidelity to Pre-Existing Law and the Legitimacy of Legal Decision." 69 Notre Dame Law Review 1 (1993).
"Settling Through Consent Decree in Prison Reform Litigation: Exploring the Effects of Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail," 34.1 Boston College Law Review 163 (1992).

Books

Cases and Materials on Tort and Accident Law, 4th ed. (with Robert Keeton and Lewis D. Sargentich) (West Group, 2004).
Teacher’s Manual to Accompany Tort and Accident Law, 4th ed. (with Robert Keeton and Lewis Sargentich) (West Group, 2005).
Cases and Materials on Tort and Accident Law, 3d ed. (with Robert E. Keeton and Lewis D. Sargentich) (West Group, 1998).
Teacher's Manual to Accompany Tort and Accident Law, 3d ed. (with Robert Keeton and Lewis Sargentich) (West Group, 1998).

Contribution to Book

"Is the Role of Tort Law to Correct Wrongful Losses?," in Rights in Private Law (D. Nolan and A. Robertson, eds.) (Hart Pub. 2012).
"A Social Contract Conception of the Tort Law of Accidents," in Philosophy and the Law of Torts (G. Postema, ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Book Reviews

"Justifying Hercules: Ronald Dworkin and the Review of Law." Review of Law's Empire, by Ronald Dworkin. 1987 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 525.

Other Works

"The New ABA Model Rule 1.6 and Expansion of Duties of Mandatory Disclosure," Proceedings of the ABA Forum on Air and Space Law, ABA Annual Meeting, Fall 2004 (with Christine Kawasaki).
"Vexing Situations: Ethics and International Practice," 13.2 The California International Practitioner 10 (2004) (with Neil Millard and Robert E. Lutz).
"Fairness and Two Fundamental Questions in the Tort Law of Accidents" (Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series, Spring 2000).
"Restating or Misstating the Law of Products Liability." USC Law 16 (Spring 1999).

Dissertation

Legal Rationality and the Rule of Law. Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton University, 1993.

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