Jessie Allen is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Before coming to legal academia, she was a voting rights lawyer and before that an actor and performance artist. Her essays have appeared in journals (e.g., Kansas Law Review; Journal of Law and Courts; Emotions: History, Culture, Society; Tulane Law Review; Dissent) and multi-author collections. In the 1980s-90s she wrote and performed a series of solo and group pieces at downtown New York City performance venues, including Threadwaxing Space, Poetry Project at St. Marks, Downtown Art Co., and Franklin Furnace, as well as clubs like 8BC, Cat Club, Pyramid Club and Limbo Lounge. At the Dora Maar House she will work on a book project, The Lover of the Law, that mixes legal scholarship with philosophical investigation and everyday life.