Speaker Biography- Dean Erwin Chemerinsky

Dean, University of California, Berkeley School of Law

Erwin Chemerinsky became the 13^th Dean of Berkeley School of Law on July 1, 2017, when he joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law. From 2008-2017, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court.  He was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from 2004-2008, and from 1983-2004, a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. Dean Chemerinsky received his bachelor’s from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.  Dean Chemerinsky is the author of over sixteen books, including two books published in the same year (2017) by Yale University Press, Closing the Courthouse Doors: How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable and Free Speech on Campus (with Howard Gillman). His most recent books are Worse than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism (2022), and Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights (2021). He also is the author of more than 200 law review articles. He regularly writes columns for the Sacramento Bee, the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, and frequent op-eds in newspapers across the country. In 2016, he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He has taught at DePaul College of Law and UCLA Law School.  He teaches Constitutional Law, First Amendment Law, Federal Courts, Criminal Procedure, and Appellate Litigation. He presents Constitutional updates to legal audiences across the country.  In January 2017, National Jurist magazine again named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States. In 2022, he was the President of the Association of American Law Schools.