Richard Hyland

In December 2025, SpringerNature will publish Common Law Judging and the Great Tradition, Professor Hyland’s absorbing exploration of the factors and approaches that play a role when common judges decide cases. The book moves beyond the usual debates and synthesizes a coherent approach from the varied strands of common law writing—from Blackstone, Holmes, and Cardozo to the innovative thinking of Duncan Kennedy, Mary Joe Frug, and Patricia Williams. The book also describes the fascinating backstory to three celebrated cases from the contracts casebook—Mills v. Wyman, Harrington v. Taylor, and Webb v. McGowin. The discussion is meant for scholars, students, and any educated reader—anyone, with or without a law degree, who has ever wondered how law works and what it means to do law well. It will be available through open access for download without charge.

Gifts: A Study in Comparative Law, Professor Hyland’s comparative investigation of the law governing the giving and revoking of gifts, was published by Oxford University Press in 2009 (rev. pb. 2012). The book offers the first wide-ranging study of the topic, at any time and in any language. 

Professor Hyland is currently at work on a portrait of political life in Mexico in the early 1970s. It includes conversations with Mexican intellectuals, workers, campesinos, and revolutionaries, together with a description of life in Lecumberri, the main jail in Mexico City.

Professor Hyland has taught as a visiting professor at universities in Barcelona, Berlin, Freiburg, Graz, Hanoi, Kyoto, Lisbon, and Paris, and as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in Tokyo and Beijing. He is a member of the Order of the Coif, the American Law Institute, the International Academy of Comparative Law, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

He was chosen Teacher of the Year by the law school student body and has also received the Camden Provost's Teaching Excellence Award and the Award of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation for a Lifetime of Distinguished Teaching.  

Professor Hyland attended Harvard College and the UC Berkeley Law School. He also holds a DEA (Diplôme d'études approfondies) in French private law from the University of Paris 2 and an MFA in fiction from the Columbia University School of the Arts.

Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty, Professor Hyland worked at the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington DC and taught at the University of Miami Law School.