About
Matteo Godi serves as Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, specializing in torts and statutory torts. He teaches first-year torts lectures and a statutory torts seminar, leveraging his extensive background in appellate litigation where he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal/state appellate courts.
Educated at Yale University (bachelor's) and Yale Law School (J.D.), Godi clerked for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Judge Guido Calabresi before entering academia. As the first in his family to attend college after moving from Italy, his career bridges practical legal experience and scholarly work.
His research critically examines intersections between traditional tort theory and statutory tort frameworks, informed by hands-on litigation expertise. This dual perspective shapes both his teaching methodology and academic contributions to legal doctrine.
Godi received exceptional recognition during law school:
- Judge Ralph K. Winter Prize (best student paper in law and economics)
- Joseph A. Chubb Prize (excellence in non-academic legal writing)
- Edward D. Robbins Prize (best student note outside Yale Law Journal)
- Charles G. Albom Prize (appellate advocacy through clinic)
Prior to USC, he taught tort law as a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School. His professional trajectory—from clerkships to high-stakes litigation to academia—demonstrates a consistent focus on tort systems' theoretical and practical dimensions.
Research fields
