Alvin Padilla-Babilonia

Assistant Professor of Law

Biography

Alvin Padilla-Babilonia's scholarship focuses on the constitutional legacy of American colonialism and the relationship between law, race, and empire. He is interested in exploring what we can learn about constitutionalism through the history of colonialism, as well as how constitutionalism constrains democracy and decolonization. Padilla-Babilonia’s scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Memphis Law Review, Wyoming Law Review, and University of Puerto Rico Law Review, among others.

Before joining Villanova Law, Padilla-Babilonia taught at the University of Puerto Rico, School of Law. In 2022, he was selected as a Bridging the Divides fellow for the decolonization study group funded by the Mellon Foundation and convened by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. He was also a Yale University Fox International Fellow at the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Padilla-Babilonia clerked for Hon. Maite D. Oronoz Rodríguez, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, and served as a judicial intern to the Hon. Juan R. Torruella of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He earned a JSD and an LLM from Yale Law School, as well as a JD and a BA from the University of Puerto Rico. He is a member of the New York and Puerto Rico bars.

Practice Experience

• Law clerk to the Chief Justice, Hon. Maite D. Oronoz Rodríguez, Supreme Court of Puerto Rico
• Fall intern to the Hon. Juan R. Torruella, United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit