Jesse James

Jesse James joined Florida State University College of Law as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2026. He is also a Fellow with Florida State University's Institute for Governance & Civics. He is a legal historian, lawyer, and Classicist whose research, at the broadest level, is concerned with the behavioral aspects of normative systems such as law. In more concrete terms, he researches and writes about questions of domestic and international legal procedure, evidence, legal argumentation, law compliance, and law enforcement, as well as the intersections of law, democracy, empire, and ethics. As a historian, his focus is on the ancient Greek and Roman worlds and their influence on the development of European and Anglo-American law. He is the author of Laws of All the Greeks: International Law as Social Reality in Ancient Greece, published in 2026 by Oxford University Press. His research has been published or is forthcoming in journals and edited volumes in Europe, Great Britain, and the United States.

At Florida State University, Professor James looks forward to teaching courses in Classical Greek and Roman law and in contemporary U.S. law. Before joining Florida State University, Professor James taught at Grinnell College and held fellowships at Harvard Law School, the Columbia University Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, and the German Archaeological Institute in Munich. He is currently a Fellow with the Phyle Project headed by Josiah Ober at Stanford University. He practiced law in New York as a litigation associate with Hughes Hubbard & Reed and remains licensed in New York State. While in active practice, he was awarded the Legal Aid Society’s Pro Bono Publico Award for his pro bono advocacy.