Professor and Associate Dean John Bickers engages students with a teaching style that has led multiple graduating classes to select him as their Professor of the Year. His classroom approach is to involve students through both the traditional law school Socratic method of question-and-answer exchanges between professors and students, and engagement in mock appellate arguments of constitutional law cases. As an associate dean, he is responsible for promoting legal research and scholarship among faculty members.
Professor Bickers has been a member of the Chase faculty since 2006. Prior to joining the faculty, he taught law classes at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and was a lawyer in the Army Judge Advocate General Corps. As a JAG officer, he practiced as a prosecutor, a defense attorney and an administrative law attorney, and managed an Army law office in Germany.
Professor Bickers earned an LL.M (Master of Laws) from Georgetown Law Center, a Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School and a Bachelor of Arts in history from Cornell University.
The Cartoon Physics of the Court-Martial (in progress)
“Greenbacks, Consent, and Unwritten Amendments” 73 Arkansas Law Review 669 (2021).
“False Facts and Holy War: How the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause Cases Fuel Religious Conflict” 51 Indiana Law Review 305 (2018).
“Asculum Defeats: Prosecution Losses in the Military Commissions and How They Help the United States” 4 National Security Law Journal 201 (2016).
Two Figures in the Picture: How an Old Legal Practice Might Solve the Puzzle of Lost Punitive Damages in Legal Malpractice, 35 N. Ill. U. L. Rev. 35 (2014) SSRN
Standing on Holy Ground: How Rethinking Justiciability Might Bring Peace to the Establishment Clause, 60 Cleveland St. L. Rev 415 (2012) SSRN
Too Little, Too Late? Why President Obama's Well-Intentioned Reforms of the Military Commissions May Not Be Enough to Save Them, 31 Whittier L. Rev. 381 (2010) Hein Online
Of Non-Horses, Quantum Mechanics, and the Establishment Clause, 57 U. Kan. L. Rev. 371 (2009) Hein Online SSRN
The Power to Do What Manifestly Must Be Done: Congress, The Freedmen's Bureau, and Constitutional Imagination, 12 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 70 (2007) Hein Online SSRN
With T. Bakken and R. Goldstein, GUIDE TO CRIMINAL PROCEDURE IN NEW YORK, Wadsworth Publishing (2005)
Military Commissions Are Constitutionally Sound: A Response To Professors Katyal And Tribe, 34 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 899 (2003) Hein Online
Warrior Generals Combat Leadership In The Civil War, 158 Mil. L. Rev. 164 (1998) Hein Online
"Greenbacks, Consent, and Unwritten Amendments," Amending America's Unwritten Constitution, Boston College, MA (May 2019)
""From Foe to Friend: The Law of War and Slavery," Common Cause: Synthesizing the Work of Human Rights and Civil Rights Scholars and Practitioners, Northern Kentucky University (April 2019)
“Voting and the Constitution,” Northern Kentucky Votes, Newport, KY (November 2017)
“Whose Lawyer Are You, Anyway?” International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation Continuing Legal Education, Lexington, KY (October 2017)
Interviewed in a story about the same-sex marriage cases, Fox 19 News, http://bit.ly/1G8MrjW. (December 2014)
Panelist, Kentucky Tonight: “Foreign Policy,” KET-TV. (December 8, 2014)
Presenter, Using a Wok: How Non-Bar Tested Electives Can Teach Lawyering, LegalED Conference on Igniting Law Teaching, American University, Washington College of Law, Washington, D.C. (April 2014)
Presenter, The Supreme Court: Year in Review, General Counsel Conference, TRICARE Military Health System General Management Agency, Washington, DC (March 2013)
Presenter, Forever Free: The Constitutionality of the Emancipation Proclamation, Six @ Six Lecture Series, Cincinnati Mercantile Library, Cincinnati, OH (September 2012)
Panelist, Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy, PBS: Kentucky Tonight, on-air broadcast (June 3, 2013)
Panelist, The Constitutionality of the Smoke-Free Kentucky Act, Kentucky House Judiciary Committee, Frankfort, KY (March 2013)
2013 Faculty Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching, Northern Kentucky University
