Rebecca Aviel
Professor of Law and Maxine Kurtz Faculty Research Scholar
303-871-6521 (Office)
Office 464B, Frank H. Ricketson Law Bldg., 2255 East Evans Ave. Denver, CO 80208
Specialization(s)
Constitutional Law, Family and Domestic Relations, Legal Ethics and Legal Profession
Professional Biography
Rebecca Aviel is a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, she practiced in the litigation department of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco and clerked for Judge Barry Silverman of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She also spent two years as a staff attorney for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Aviel’s research and teaching interests include legal ethics and professional responsibility, family law, and constitutional law, with a scholarly focus on the opportunities for insight where these fields intersect. Her current research examines the role of lawyers in a constitutional democracy, the constitutional implications of professional regulation, and innovation in the delivery of legal services to litigants in family court.
Her recent work, The Weaponization of Attorney’s Fees in an Age of Constitutional Warfare, 132 Yale L.J. 2048 (2023), explains that states are using the threat of catastrophic, one-sided fee awards to evade judicial review in controversial areas like abortion and gun control. Litigants challenging such laws face liability for the opposing party’s legal fees, while the state and its ideological allies bear no such risk. Not only do these provisions thus discriminate on the basis of viewpoint, they obstruct access to counsel by imposing joint and several liability on attorneys for the disfavored parties. For the first time ever, attorneys face fee liability not for any misconduct but solely for representing a certain kind of litigant raising legitimate claims that the state doesn’t want subjected to judicial scrutiny.
Degree(s)
- JD, Law, Harvard Law School
- BA, Anthropology, Yale University
Licensure / Accreditations
- Licensed attorney
Featured Publications
- From Gods to Google, 134 Yale L.J. 3000 (2025) (co-authored with Margot Kaminski, Toni Massaro, and Andrew Woods).
- Lawmaking for Leverage, 102 N.C. L. Rev. 1573 (2024).
- The Weaponization of Attorney’s Fees in an Age of Constitutional Warfare, 132 Yale L.J. 2048 (2023) (co-authored with Wiley Kersh, JD'23).
- Second-Bite Lawmaking, 100 N.C. L. Rev. 947 (2022).
- Lawyer Speech, Investigative Deception, and the First Amendment, 2021 U. ILL. L. REV. 1267 (co-authored with Alan K. Chen) (2021).
- Remedial Commandeering, 54 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1999 (2021).
- Rights as a Zero-Sum Game, 61 Ariz. L. Rev. 351 (2019).
- Faithful Unions, 69 HASTINGS L.J. 721 (2018).
- Rule 8.4(g) and the First Amendment: Distinguishing between Discrimination and Free Speech, 31 Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 31 (2018).
- Family Law and the New Access to Justice, 86 Fordham L. Rev. 2279 (2018).
- A New Formalism for Family Law, 55 William and Mary L. Rev. 2003 (2014).
- Counsel for the Divorce, 55 Boston College L. Rev. 1099 (2014).
- Why Civil Gideon Won’t Fix Family Law, 122 Yale L.J. 2106 (2013).
- The Boundary Claim’s Caveat: Lawyers and Confidentiality Exceptionalism, 86 Tul. L. Rev. 1055 (2012).
- When the State Demands Disclosure, 33 Cardozo L. Rev. 675 (2011).
- Restoring Equipoise to Child Welfare, 62 Hastings L.J. 401 (2010).
- Compulsory Education and Substantive Due Process: Asserting Student Rights to a Safe and Healthy School Environment, 10 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 201 (2006).
