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About USC Gould
USC Gould is a top-ranked law school with a 120-year history and reputation for academic excellence. We are located on the beautiful 228-acre USC University Park Campus, just south of downtown Los Angeles.
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Academics
Learn about our interdisciplinary curriculum, experiential learning opportunities and specialized areas.
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Admissions
USC Gould helps prepare you for a stellar legal career. You can pursue a JD degree, one of our numerous graduate and international offerings, or an online degree or certificate.
- Students
Students
Participate in an unparalleled learning experience with diversity of people and thought. Get involved in the law school community and participate in activities that enhance your studies.
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Careers
We work closely with students, graduates and employers to support successful career goals and outcomes. Our overall placement rate is consistently strong, with 94 percent of our JD class employed within 10 months after graduation.
- Faculty
Faculty
Our faculty is distinguished for its scholarship, as well as for its commitment to teaching. Our 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio creates an intimate and collegial learning environment.
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Felipe Jiménez
USC Gould School of Law
- FACULTY DIRECTORY
- LECTURERS IN LAW DIRECTORY
- EXPERTS DIRECTORY
- FACULTY IN THE NEWS
- SCHOLARSHIP AND PUBLICATIONS
- DISTINCTIONS AND AWARDS
- + CENTERS AND INITIATIVES
- CENTER FOR LAW AND PHILOSOPHY (CLP)
- CENTER FOR LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE (CLASS)
- CENTER FOR LAW, HISTORY AND CULTURE (CLHC)
- CENTER FOR TRANSNATIONAL LAW AND BUSINESS (CTLB)
- INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM INSTITUTE (IRI)
- PACIFIC CENTER FOR HEALTH POLICY AND ETHICS
- SAKS INSTITUTE FOR MENTAL HEALTH LAW, POLICY, AND ETHICS
- + WORKSHOPS AND CONFERENCES

Assistant Professor of Law and Philosophy
Email: fjimenez@law.usc.eduTelephone: (213) 821- 2964
699 Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90089-0074 USA Room: 423
SSRN Author Page: Link
Last Updated: November 16, 2021
Felipe Jiménez works in the areas of private law, legal theory and comparative private law. He teaches contracts, and upper-level seminars and undergraduate courses on private law, legal reasoning and legal theory.
Jiménez graduated, summa cum laude, from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and holds LLM (Legal Theory) and JSD degrees from New York University. He has also worked as a lawyer specialized in international arbitration and commercial litigation in Chile and the United States.
Jiménez has written articles on contract theory, the theory of adjudication and jurisprudence. His work in Spanish also includes articles and book chapters on Chilean private law and on legal theory. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, the University of Chicago Law Review Online, the University of Toronto Law Journal, the Utah Law Review, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, and Ratio Juris, among others.
Works in Progress
- "The Normativity of Contract"
- "A Normative Argument for Positivism"
- "The Theory of Contract Remedies"
- "Legal Obligation as Commitment"
- "Private Law Theory as Comparative Jurisprudence"
- "Private Rights as Legal Rights"
- "Why Faculty Diversity in Law School Matters: The Argument from Epistemology"
Articles and Book Chapters
- "Specific Performance," Forthcoming in Research Handbook in the Philosophy of Contract Law (M. Chen-Wishart & P. Saprai eds., 2022).
- "Justifying Private Law," Forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Private Law Theory, Vol. II (P. Miller & J. Oberdick eds., 2022).
- "The Grounds of Arbitral Authority," Forthcoming in 96 Tulane Law Review (2021-22). - (SSRN)
- "Legal Principles, Law, and Tradition," Forthcoming in 33 Yale Journal of Law and The Humanities (2021). - (SSRN)
- "Some Doubts about Folk Jurisprudence: The Case of Proximate Cause," The University of Chicago Law Review Online (2021). - (www) - (SSRN)
- "Law, Morality, and the One-System View: A Response to T.R.S. Allan," forthcoming The American Journal of Jurisprudence (2021).
- "Two Questions for Private Law Theory," Jurisprudence (2021). - (SSRN)
- "Contracts, Markets, and Justice," 71 (1) University of Toronto Law Journal 144 (2021). - (www) - (SSRN)
- "A Formalist Theory of Contract Law Adjudication," 2020 (5) Utah Law Review 1121 (2020). - (PDF)
- "Against Parochialism in Contract Theory: A Response to Brian Bix," 32 (2) Ratio Juris 233 (2019). - (SSRN) - (www)
- Book Review: "La Forma del Derecho," (with Martin Hevia) 15 (2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 578 (2017). - (www)
- "Ni Función ni Estructura: Una respuesta a la idea de justicia constitucional de Fernando Atria," (with Sergio Verdugo) in Comentarios a La Forma del Derecho (J. Gallego ed., 2020). - (SSRN)
- "¿Es el enriquecimiento injustificado un principio de justicia?," in Fundamentos Filosóficos del Derecho Civil Chileno (E. Pereira ed., Rubicon, 2019).
- "Una crítica a la idea de incumplimiento eficiente desde el Derecho de Contratos," 29 Revista Chilena De Derecho Privado 99 (2017). - (Hein)
- "Comentario a la sentencia de Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago Rol No. 2259-2010, 6 de mayo de 2011," in Contratos: Jurisprudencia Civil Comentada (P. Cornejo and J. Larrocau eds., 2017).
- "La Teoría del Derecho de Contratos y su Relación con la Dogmática," 44 (2) Revista Chilena De Derecho 395 (2017). - (Hein) - (www)
- "Dos implicancias de la igualdad relacional," 144 Estudios Públicos 31 (2017). - (www)
- Book Review: "¿Por qué obligan los contratos?," 22 (2) Ius Et Praxis 531 (2016). - (www)
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
Bloomberg Government
June 22, 2022
Re: Franita Tolson
Franita Tolson was interviewed about how federal lawsuits from North Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas test the limits of the Voting Rights Act, the boundaries of state government authority, and the ability of voting rights groups to file racial gerrymandering cases. “These doctrines and approaches in these cases fundamentally reset the rules of the game,” she said. “In 2030 we will live in a completely different world than we lived in in 2020, and 2020 was not favorable to minority voters at all.”
RECENT SCHOLARSHIP
Robin Craig
March, 2022
"Saltwater Sovereignty: Tribal Marine Management Authority Along the Pacific Coast.” Online Environmental Law Workshop. University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore, MD.
Daniel Klerman
March, 2022
“Comment on Choi, Erickson, & Pritchard, ‘Coalitions among Plaintiffs’ Attorneys in Securities Class Actions’,” Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, Virtual, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Robin Craig
March, 2022
“Who’s on First? The Mind-Blowing Attempt to Conceptualize Deference in the Midst of Decision Delays and Agency Repeals,” J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Environmental Law Symposium for the George Washington University School of Law, Virtual, Washington, D.C.