James C. Duff

Interim Dean

James C. Duff is currently serving as interim dean of the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law. He has served as Executive Director of the Supreme Court Historical Society since February 2021. He previously served as Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO), by appointment of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., from January 2015 through January 2021. He served an earlier term as AO Director from July 2006 to September 2011. As AO Director, Duff was the Secretary of the Judicial Conference of the United States and a member of the board of the Federal Judicial Center.

In between his two periods of service as Director of the AO, Duff served as president and chief executive officer of the Freedom Forum and the Newseum from 2011 through 2014.

Duff is former chairman of the U.S. Supreme Court Fellows Commission and has been a board member of the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society since 1996. He was an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University for 16 years where he was the inaugural professor in the Walter Giles Endowed Department Seminar in Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties in 2010 and was named the Peter Mullen Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown for 2014. He has also lectured in the “Courts and Congress” seminar at Georgetown Law School in 2022 and 2023.

Previously, Duff was managing partner of the Washington office of Baker Donelson which was founded by Howard Baker Jr., former majority leader of the U.S. Senate. At the firm, Duff represented the University of Kentucky’s federal interests, served as counsel to the Federal Judges Association, and was counsel and secretary to the Freedom Forum and its affiliates, the Newseum, First Amendment Center and Diversity Institute. He was also appointed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to review and advise it on its procedures while at Baker Donelson.

From 1996 to 2000, Duff served as Counselor to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and was his liaison with Congress, the executive branch, and various state and federal organizations involved with the administration of justice. He served as counsel to the Chief Justice in his role as presiding officer of the presidential impeachment trial in 1999. Duff also assisted Chief Justice Rehnquist in his duties as Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution.

Earlier in his career, Duff was a partner at Clifford & Warnke, where he worked for 12 years until many in the firm merged with Howrey & Simon where he was a litigation partner for five years. While attending Georgetown Law, he worked in Chief Justice Warren E. Burger’s chambers for four years.

As an undergraduate at the University of Kentucky, he was a walk-on member of the basketball team. He graduated from Kentucky in 1975 magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree, Phi Beta Kappa, and with High Distinction in its Honors Program. He attended the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in 1973. He received his law degree at Georgetown University Law School in 1981.

Duff was elected to The American Law Institute in 2016 and appointed to the Georgetown Law School’s Board of Visitors in 2014. He served as the first Chair of the University of Kentucky Arts & Sciences Advisory Board and currently serves on the UK Lewis Honors College Advisory Board. In 2021, he was inducted into the University of Kentucky’s Hall of Distinguished Alumni and in 2012 he was named to the UK Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. He was given the Georgetown Entertainment and Media Law Achievement Award also in 2012.

Duff is married to Kathleen Gallagher-Duff, a lawyer at Covington & Burling. They have three children and two grandchildren.