John J. Donohue III has been one of the leading empirical researchers in the legal academy over the past 25 years. Professor Donohue is an economist as well as a lawyer and is well known for using empirical analysis to determine the impact of law and public policy in a wide range of areas, including civil rights and antidiscrimination law, employment discrimination, crime and criminal justice, and school funding. Professor Donohue previously was a member of the law school faculty from 1995–2004.

Before rejoining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2010, Professor Donohue was the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He recently co-authored Employment Discrimination: Law and Theory with George Rutherglen. Earlier in his career, he was a law professor at Northwestern University as well as a research fellow with the American Bar Foundation. Additionally, he clerked with Chief Justice T. Emmet Clarie, of the U.S. District Court of Hartford, Connecticut. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the former editor of the American Law and Economics Review and president of the American Law and Economics Association.