Jason R. Bent joined the Chicago-Kent College of Law faculty in fall 2025 as the director of the Malin Institute for the Law and the Workplace. Prior to Chicago-Kent, he spent 14 years teaching at Stetson University College of Law, first as an assistant professor of law and eventually as associate dean for academic affairs.
Bent co-authors a treatise on the use of statistics in employment discrimination cases, titled The Statistics of Discrimination: Using Statistical Evidence in Discrimination Cases. He has also co-authored two books: An Illustrated Guide to Civil Procedure and Legal Protection for the Individual Employee. He is currently working on his third book, titled Remedies: Cases, Problems, and Strategies.
Bent has also acted as visiting professor of law at Washington University School of Law and as Shughart fellow and visiting assistant professor at Penn State Dickinson Law.
Before pivoting to academia, Bent clerked for the Honorable Joan B. Gottschall in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and for the Honorable Cornelia Kennedy in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
He then spent three years in the employment, commercial litigation, and appellate practice at Foley & Lardner, LLP. He also acted as principal and shareholder of his own firm in Chicago, Smith & Bent, P.C., for six years, where he headed up the environmental and employment litigation practice.
Education
J.D., University of Michigan Law School
B.A., Grinnell College
Publications
Books and Treatises
Legal Protection for the Individual Employee (West Academic 6th ed., 2021) (with Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Matthew W. Finkin, and Ruben J. Garcia).
The Statistics of Discrimination: Using Statistical Evidence in Employment Discrimination Cases (Thomson Reuters 2023-2024 ed.) (with Jennifer Shinall, and multiple prior editions with co-author Ramona Paetzold).
An Illustrated Guide to Civil Procedure (Wolters-Kluwer 4th ed., 2019) (with Michael P. Allen and Michael Finch).
Remedies: Cases, Problems, and Strategies (work in progress) (with Marco Jimenez).
Articles and Book Chapters
Compensability, Opportunism, and the Race to the Bottom: A View from (Near) the Bottom, 37 ABA J. of Lab. & Emp. L. 221 (2023), invited contribution to symposium.
Fairness in Algorithmic Selection: How to Comply with Title VII, 35 ABA J. OF LAB. & EMP. L. 241 (2021) (with Kelly Trindel and Sara Kassir).
Is Algorithmic Affirmative Action Legal? 108 Georgetown L.J. 803 (2020).
OSHA, the Opportunism Police, 2019 BYU L. Rev. 365 (2019).
Searching for Common Law Amid the Statutes: Report on the Restatement of Employment Law, Chapter 4, 21 Employee Rights & Employment Policy Journal 459 (2017).
Hope for Zimmerism: Overcoming the Empathy Problem in Antidiscrimination Law, 20 Employee Rights & Employment Policy Journal 277 (2016).
Health Theft, 48 Connecticut Law Review 637 (2016).
The Case for Split Recovery in “Immployment” Law (Ten-Foot Pole Not Required), chapter in Comparative Perspectives on Remedies: Views from Four Continents (Carolina Academic Press 2017).
P-Values, Priors, and Procedure in Antidiscrimination Law, 63 Buffalo Law Review 85 (2015).
Hidden Priors: Toward a Unifying Theory of Systemic Disparate Treatment Law, 91 Denver University Law Review 807 (2014), paper selected for invitation to symposium.
Curtailing Voter Intimidation By Employers After Citizens United, 43 Stetson Law Review 595 (2014), invited contribution to symposium.
An Incentive-Based Approach to Regulating Workplace Chemicals, 73 Ohio State Law Journal 1389 (2012)
The Telltale Sign of Discrimination: Probabilities, Information Asymmetries, and the Systemic Disparate Treatment Theory, 44 Michigan Journal of Law Reform 797 (2011), paper selected for presentation at the Fourth Annual Employment & Labor Law Scholars Forum, Seton Hall Law School (January 22, 2010).
Systemic Harassment, 77 Tennessee Law Review 151 (2009)
What the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Doesn’t Do: “Discrete Acts” and the Future of Pattern or Practice Litigation, 33 Rutgers Law Record 31 (April 2009), reprinted in Women and the Law (Jane Campbell Moriarty, ed., 2009)
Sentencing Equality for Deportable Aliens: Departures from the Sentencing Guidelines on the Basis of Alienage, 98 Michigan Law Review 1320 (2000) (student note).
Shorter Works
"Symposium Introduction and Dedication," 45 Stetson Law Review 1 (2016).
"Second Circuit Breaches Barrier to Class Certification," National Law Journal (October 30, 2006).
"Sex Harassment May Be A Jury Issue," National Law Journal (January 9, 2006).
"Managing the Risks of Sanctions in Federal Appeals," Corporate Counsel (July, 2003) (with David B. Goroff).
Professional Activities
Employment and Labor Relations Section Officer, AALS (Executive Committee, 2016-2017; Chair, 2015; Vice-Chair, 2014; Secretary, 2013).
Southeastern Association of Law Schools, Moderator Committee (2019-2021).
Guest Contributor, The Workplace Prof Blog
Editorial Board of the ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law, f/k/a The Labor Lawyer, published by the American Bar Association (2009-2012)
Coach and judge of high school mock trial events for the Chicago Public Schools (2002-2005) and the Northwest Suburban Bar Association (2008)
Organizer, ABA Law Day, Des Moines East High School (2011, 2014)
Presentations
The Text and Context of Title VII’s “Particular Religion” Exception, Labor Law Group Conference, held at Chicago-Kent College of Law (June 20, 2024).
Compensability, Opportunism, and the Race to the Bottom: A View from (Near) the Bottom, Saint Louis University School of Law symposium, Fifty Years After “Inadequate and Inequitable”: Reflections on State Workmen’s Compensation Laws (October 11, 2022).
Is Algorithmic Affirmative Action Legal?, selected as winner of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) Call for Papers contest, presented at the SEALS Annual Meeting on July 29, 2019.
Searching for Common Law Amid the Statutes: Report on the Restatement of Employment Law, Chapter 4, Labor Law Group Conference at Indiana University-Bloomington, Maurer School of Law (November 18-19, 2016).
Hope for Zimmerism: Overcoming the Empathy Problem in Antidiscrimination Law, Seton Hall University School of Law (October 21, 2016).
When Charlotte’s Web Tangles With Employment Law, at Charlotte’s Tangled Web live continuing professional education event co-sponsored by the Stetson University College of Law and the University of South Florida College of Medicine (October 10, 2014).
Curtailing Voter Intimidation By Employers After Citizens United, Stetson Law Review Symposium, Taking Stock of Citizens United: How the Law Has (and Has Not) Changed Four Years Later (February 28, 2014).
Reading the NLRB Tea Leaves: Looming Changes to Labor Organization in Higher Education, 35th Annual National Conference on Law and Higher Education (February 17, 2014).
Hidden Priors, Denver University Law Review Symposium, Revisiting Sex: Gender and Sex Discrimination Fifty Years After the Civil Rights Act (January 31, 2014).
Reframing Feasibility Analysis (new title: Health Theft), Eighth Annual Colloquium on Current Scholarship in Labor and Employment Law, University of Nevada Las Vegas (September 27, 2013).
Hidden Priors: Plausibility and Inference in Systemic Discrimination Cases, Seventh Annual Colloquium on Current Scholarship in Labor and Employment Law, Northwestern University School of Law (September 15, 2012).
Hidden Priors: Plausibility and Inference in Systemic Discrimination Cases, 2012 Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (July 30, 2012).
An Incentive-Based Approach to Regulating Workplace Chemicals, Sixth Annual Colloquium on Current Scholarship in Labor and Employment Law, Loyola Law School Los Angeles, California (September 16-17, 2011).
The Telltale Sign of Discrimination: Information Asymmetries, Statistical Evidence, and the Pattern or Practice Doctrine, Fourth Annual Employment & Labor Law Scholars Forum, Seton Hall Law School (January 22-23, 2010).
Arbitration of Employment Discrimination Claims After 14 Penn Plaza v. Pyett, Chicago Bar Association (May 18, 2010).
Employee Use of Social Media: Individual Privacy Rights vs. Employer Due Diligence, Chicago Bar Association, Civil Rights and Constitutional Law Committee (April 16, 2010).
Employment Law for the New Lawyer, Chicago Bar Association (October 27, 2009).
Opening A Law Office: Capitalization, Chicago Bar Association, Law Practice Management & Technology Committee (March 27-28, 2009; January 14, 2010).
Guest Lecturer, Opening A Law Office: Capitalization, Chicago-Kent College of Law (September 10, 2009).
Guest Speaker, Creative Careers and Organizational Management, Grinnell College (February 20, 2009)