Carli Conklin

Carli N. Conklin serves as Associate Professor at the University of Missouri School of Law and Associate Professor of Constitutional Democracy at the Kinder Institute, with additional appointment as Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution. She earned joint JD/MA and PhD degrees in American Legal History from the University of Virginia, where she received the Traynor Prize for outstanding written work.

Her research focuses on arbitration practices, rights discourses, and legal philosophy during early American history. She has published peer-reviewed articles in American Journal of Legal History, Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, and Journal of Dispute Resolution. Conklin is an invited contributor to Oxford University Press volumes on dispute resolution (2021, 2025).

Conklin's award-winning book The Pursuit of Happiness in the Founding Era (2019) received the national CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award. Other honors include Missouri Lawyers Weekly's Women's Justice Award (Legal Scholar category), the University of Missouri's Shook, Hardy & Bacon Excellence in Research Award, and the Kappa Alpha Theta Outstanding Faculty Award.

She teaches lawyering, dispute resolution, and American legal history at the School of Law, along with intellectual and legal history courses at the Kinder Institute and Honors College. Conklin has been recognized with student-selected teaching awards including the School of Law Board of Advocates Faculty Achievement Award and Mortar Board Faculty Honor Tap.