Rate My Professor Peter Rutledge

Peter B. Rutledge holds the Talmadge Chair of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. From 2015 through 2024, he served as dean, during which the school achieved record fundraising nearing $90 million, doubled its endowment, reduced student indebtedness by nearly 55%, and posted the nation's highest J.D. Class of 2021 employment rate, 99% bar passage rates, and top Georgia bar pass rates. Innovations included curriculum overhaul, new clinics, dual degrees, and online programs, earning #1 Best Value rankings from National Jurist and a historic #20 U.S. News ranking. Prior roles at UGA include associate dean for faculty development (2013-2014) and faculty since 2008.

Rutledge received a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University, M.Litt. from the University of Aberdeen, and J.D. with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School (Order of the Coif, executive editor of the Law Review). He clerked for Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III (Fourth Circuit) and Justice Clarence Thomas (Supreme Court), practiced international arbitration at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and litigation at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, and taught at Catholic University of America (Professor of the Year 2004-2007) and as Fulbright Professor at the University of Vienna Law School (2010-2011). He has won the John C. O'Byrne Memorial Award multiple times, most recently in 2025. His research specializes in international dispute resolution and arbitration; notable publications include Arbitration and the Constitution (Cambridge University Press, 2013), International Civil Litigation in United States Courts (7th ed., with Gary Born, Wolters Kluwer, 2022), and articles in the University of Chicago Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Journal of International Arbitration. Rutledge successfully argued Irizarry v. United States before the Supreme Court as amicus curiae in 2008, testifies before Congress on arbitration legislation, serves as a listed arbitrator, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.