Kellen Funk studies American legal, political, and religious history. His research focuses on the development of legal institutions and professional culture in America after the mid-nineteenth century. Codes of civil procedure were central to these changes. After New York adopted the first practice code in 1848 (the Field Code), most American jurisdictions followed with their own codes through the turn of the century. Through these codes lawyers and legislators fused traditions from common law and equity; they granted significant power to lawyers in the management of litigation; and they blazed distinctive pathways for Americans to access and respond to professionalized law.

Kellen recently received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Yale Law Journal and a Submissions Editor for the Yale Law & Policy Review.

Publications

"Equity without Chancery: The Fusion of Law and Equity in the Field Code of Civil Procedure, New York 1846-76," Journal of Legal History, 36, no. 2 (2015).

"'Let No Man Put Asunder': South Carolina's Law of Divorce, 1895-1950," South Carolina Historical Magazine, 110, no. 3-4 (July-Oct., 2009), 134-53. (JSTOR)