Joel S. Johnson
Biography
Professor Joel Johnson is an award-winning scholar and teacher of criminal law and procedure, statutory interpretation, and constitutional law. His articles have been published in leading law reviews, including The University of Chicago Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Georgetown Law Journal. Professor Johnson’s article Ad Hoc Constructions of Penal Statutes won the 2026 Emerging Scholar Award from the AALS Legislation and Law of the Political Process Section. His article Major-Questions Lenity won Runner-Up in the 2025 AALS Criminal Law Section Junior Scholars Paper Competition.
At Pepperdine, Professor Johnson teaches Criminal Procedure, Statutory Interpretation, and Torts. Students voted him 1L Professor of the Year in his first year on the faculty.
Professor Johnson’s work regularly informs practice. He has filed amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases, including Dubin v. United States (2023), Grants Pass v. Johnson (2024), and Thompson v. United States (2025). Multiple federal courts have cited his articles. And his commentary has been quoted in The New York Times, Bloomberg Law, and NBC News.
Before entering academia, Professor Johnson was an attorney in the Criminal Appellate Section of the Department of Justice and an appellate specialist in private practice. He drafted dozens of merits-stage and cert-stage briefs in the Supreme Court and argued several federal appeals.
Professor Johnson graduated first in his class from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as the Articles Development Editor of the Virginia Law Review and won the Margaret G. Hyde Award. He clerked for Judge Robert D. Sack of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Judge T.S. Ellis III of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Areas of Expertise
- Criminal Law
- Criminal Procedure
- Constitutional Law
- Statutory Interpretation
Courses
- Criminal Procedure
- Statutory Interpretation
- Torts