Enrique Armijo, associate dean for academic affairs and an associate professor of law, is the fourth member of the Elon University School of Law faculty elevated to the ranks of the nation’s premier organization for the advancement of legal scholarship.
An Elon Law professor with a distinguished history of First Amendment scholarship has been elected to a highly selective national organization that supports legal research with the potential of reshaping the practice of law.
Enrique Armijo, associate dean for academic affairs and an associate professor of law, formally joined the The American Law Institute on Oct. 19, 2017, following a vote by its governing council. Armijo teaches and researches in the areas of the First Amendment, constitutional law, torts, administrative law, and media and internet law.
Armijo is the fourth Elon Law faculty member elected to the ALI, a list that includes Dean Luke Bierman, Associate Dean Steve Friedland, and Professor Henry Gabriel.
“Every year on the first day of class, I tell my first-year students about the Restatement of Torts, which is drafted by ALI, and how it helps state courts to craft their own tort law,” Amrijo said. “It’s a great honor to have the opportunity to contribute to that important work myself as a member of ALI.”
The American Law Institute, a nonprofit based in Philadelphia, advances legal scholarship meant to clarify, modernize, and improve the law. Membership in the ALI gives scholars “the opportunity to influence the development of the law in both existing and emerging areas, to work with other eminent lawyers, judges, and academics, to give back to a profession to which they are deeply dedicated, and to contribute to the public good.”
Armijo’s scholarship has appeared in the Boston College Law Review, the Washington and Lee Law Review, the North Carolina Law Review, the peer-reviewed Communication Law and Policy and Political Science Quarterly, and other journals. An influential scholar often cited in news coverage of First Amendment issues, Armijo has also worked with regulators and practitioners on media reform throughout the world, including in Jordan, Rwanda, and Myanmar.
Armijo’s work has been cited by the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Election Commission, and other agencies, and in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. Armijo regularly comments on technology law issues for Bloomberg Law and serves as an Affiliated Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project.
“Enrique is an outstanding young scholar and teacher. His expertise is eclectic, crossing neatly defined subject areas and providing important interdisciplinary perspectives,” Luke Bierman wrote this summer when nominating Armijo for membership in the organization. “We at Elon Law are lucky to have Enrique as a colleague, his students are lucky to have him as a teacher, and ALI will be pleased to have him as a member who will contribute significantly to ALI’s important mission.”
Prior to joining Elon Law, Armijo advised journalists, news organizations and trade associations on media law-related issues. As an appellate lawyer, Armijo briefed cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and briefed or argued cases in several federal courts of appeal.
Armijo earned his Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the North Carolina Law Review. After law school, he clerked for the Hon. Karen LeCraft Henderson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.