After graduation from Harvard, he was a cofounder of The Richmond Mercury, a short-lived alternative weekly whose alumni include Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Frank Rich and Glenn Frankel.
Immediately before moving to the University of Oregon, he spent a year clerking for Judge John D. Butzner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Epps has written two novels, including The Shad Treatment, which won the Lillian Smith Book Award, as well as the nonfiction books To An Unknown God: Religious Freedom on Trial, which was published in 2001 and was a finalist for the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, and Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Civil Rights in Post-Civil War America, which was published in 2006.
He has also written numerous articles and editorials in newspapers including the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic.
In his article "The Founders' Great Mistake",[3] he urged America to amend its Constitution to more closely resemble a parliamentary system.