Dr. Blocher is the Lanty L. Smith ’67 Professor of Law at Duke Law School. After graduating from Rice University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 2001, he moved to study at Cambridge University and Yale Law School.
Victoria: What were the most valuable skills you learned from your time at the History Department at Rice?
Dr. Blocher: Being a history major taught me an enormous amount about research, writing, and analysis: those skills that were central to every history course I took at Rice, and are the basis for everything I did in legal practice and now as a law professor.
Victoria: What made you decide to go to law school?
Dr. Blocher: I was drawn to the intellectual challenge of law and the fundamental role it has in shaping society. At the same time, I wanted to join a profession in which those challenges are made concrete and specific.
Victoria: How has your background in history influenced your work in the 2nd and 11th Courts of Appeals? At O’Melveny & Myers LLP?
Dr. Blocher: Even for those of us who aren’t thoroughgoing “originalists,” constitutional interpretation is in part about history: how did the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution intend or understand it to operate? More generally, though, lawyers and historians have a lot in common in terms of how they do their work—attention to facts, making careful arguments on that basis, and so on.
Victoria: A lot of your work seems to focus on constitutional law. What drew you to this subject?
Dr. Blocher: Constitutional law is about the fundamental legal relationships between federal and state power, among the branches of the federal government, and between the government and private citizens. That encompasses an enormously broad, important, and interesting set of issues.
Victoria: What advice would you give to current pre-law students? History majors?
Dr. Blocher: While it’s helpful to know a bit about the history and structure of American government—classes in history, political science, and other disciplines can help with that—it’s actually not all that important to learn “law” as an undergraduate. You’ll have plenty of time for that in law school. Whether you want to go to law school or something else, the most important thing is to immerse yourself in a subject you care passionately about, and to hone your research, writing, and analytical skills.
Interview by Victoria Saeki-Sema in October 2019 for the Rice Historical Review Student Feature