Assistant Professor of Law

• Administrative Law
• Constitutional Law II
• Torts

Prior to joining Lewis & Clark Law School, Jim Oleske served as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Chief of Staff of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs.  Earlier in his career, he served as Chief of Staff of the Oregon Senate Majority Office; Counsel in the Office of U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle; Appellate Attorney at the National Labor Relations Board; Visiting Lecturer at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law; and Associate at Mayer, Brown & Platt.  He began his career as a law clerk to then-Third Circuit Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Professor Oleske’s research has focused on the intersection of free exercise rights and other constitutional values.  He previously published Federalism, Free Exercise, and Title VII:  Reconsidering Reasonable Accommodation, 6 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 525 (2004), and he is currently working on an article exploring the underappreciated role of equal protection analysis in the debate over religious exemptions to same-sex marriage laws.