Deborah Hellman is the Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law and Director of its Center for Law & Philosophy. 

There are two main strands in Hellman’s work.  The first focuses on equal protection law and its philosophical justification. She is the author of When Is Discrimination Wrong? (Harvard University Press, 2008), one of the first extended explorations of the normative grounding of antidiscrimination law, which has been translated into both Korean and Japanese. In addition, she is the co-editor of The Philosophical Foundations of Discrimination Law (Oxford University Press, 2013), as well as numerous articles related to equal protection, discrimination and algorithmic fairness. Her article “Measuring Algorithmic Fairness,” was recognized by both the American Philosophical Association with the AI2050 prize for the best article on AI by an established researcher over a four-year period, and with the Jurisprudence Section award from the Association of American Law Schools. The second strand of her work focuses on campaign finance law, bribery and corruption. Her article “A Theory of Bribery” won the 2019 Fred Berger Memorial Prize (for philosophy of law) from the American Philosophical Association. She also writes about the obligations of professional roles, especially in the context of clinical medical research.

Hellman is currently the president of Nomos: The American Society of Political and Legal Philosophy, an associate editor of the journal Law and Philosophy, and a member of the American Law Institute, among other commitments.

Hellman has held several fellowships and visiting professorships.  She was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2005-06), the Eugene P. Beard Faculty Fellow in Ethics at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University (2004-05), and held a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers in 1999. She was the Robert Braucher Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in 2022 and a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2007-08.

She graduated Dartmouth magna cum laude in 1985 where she was the recipient of the Francis W. Gramlich philosophy prize and the James B. Reynolds Fellowship.  She earned an M.A. degree in Philosophy from Columbia University in 1987, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, cum laude, in 1991. Finally, she is the proud parent of a Dartmouth graduate of 2026.