Vikram D. Amar

Visiting Professor of Law (Spring Term Only)

About

Professor Amar joined the College of Law as its dean in 2015, after having been a professor of law for many years at law schools in the University of California System, including the UC Davis School of Law, where he served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Amar is one of the most eminent and frequently cited authorities in constitutional law, federal courts, and civil procedure. He has produced several books and over 60 articles in leading law reviews. He is a co-author (along with Akhil Reed Amar and Steven Calabresi) of the upcoming edition of the six-volume Treatise on Constitutional Law (West Publishing Co., 6th ed. 2021) pioneered by Ron Rotunda and John Nowak, as well as the hardbound and soft-cover one-volume hornbooks that derive from it. He is also a co-author (along with Jonathan Varat) of Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 15th ed. 2017), a co-author on multiple volumes of the Wright & Miller Federal Practice and Procedure Treatise (West Publishing Co. 2006), and a co-author (along with John Oakley) of a one-volume treatise on American Civil Procedure (Kluwer, 2008). He writes a biweekly column on constitutional matters for Justia.com and a monthly column on legal education for abovethelaw.com, is a frequent commentator on local and national radio and TV, and has penned dozens of op-ed pieces for major newspapers and magazines.

A strong proponent of public and professional engagement, Amar is an elected member of the American Law Institute and has served as a consultant for, among others, the National Association of Attorneys General, the United States Department of Justice, the California Attorney General’s Office, the ACLU of Southern California, and the Center for Civic Education. For one year he chaired the Civil Procedure Section of the Association of American Law Schools.

Amar earned his bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley and his juris doctor from Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal. He then clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court before joining Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he handled a variety of complex civil and white-collar criminal matters. It appears that dean Amar was the first person of South Asian heritage to clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court, and was the first American-born person of Indian descent to serve as a dean of a major American law school. Follow Amar’s bi-weekly column on Justia.com and his monthly column on Above the Law, and read archived posts from his FindLaw.com column.Z

UC Davis School of Law Faculty Profile

Education

JD Yale Law School
AB University of California, Berkeley

Areas of Expertise

Civil Procedure
Constitutional Law
Federal Courts

Courses

Basic Constitutional Law & Individual Rights
State Constitutional Law and Contemporary Public Policy

Selected Publications

Books

FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE, JURISDICTION 3D Vol.17 (with Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller and Edward H. Cooper, St. Paul: West Group, 2006) (with 2014 Pocket Part)

FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE, JURISDICTION 3D Vol.17A (with Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller and Edward H. Cooper, St. Paul: West Group, 2006) (with 2014 Pocket Part)

FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE, JURISDICTION 3D Vol.17B (with Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller and Edward H. Cooper, St. Paul: West Group, 2006) (with 2014 Pocket Part)

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: CASES AND MATERIALS (with William Cohen and Jonathan D. Varat, 14 th ed., Westbury, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 2013) (with 2014 Supp.)

CONCISE EDITION OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: CASES AND MATERIALS (with William Cohen and Jonathan D. Varat, 14 th ed., Westbury, N.Y.: Foundation Press 2014) (with 2013 Supp.)

Articles and Essays

Standing Up for Direct Democracy: Who Can Be Empowered to Defend Initiatives in Federal Court?, 48 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 473 (2014)

The Case for Reforming Presidential Elections by Sub-Constitutional Means: The Electoral College, the National Popular Vote Compact and Congressional Power, 100 GEORGETOWN L. J. 237 (2011)

How Senate Confirmation Hearings Should Better Educate Senators and the American Public: The Instructional Necessity of Case-Specific Questioning, 61 HASTINGS L.J. 1407 (2010)

Lessons from California’s Unusual Non-Unitary Executive Branch, 59 EMORY L. J. 469 (2009)

When Avoiding Federal Questions Shouldn’t Evade Federal Review, 12 GREEN BAG 2D 381 (2009) (with Alan Brownstein)

See All Publications

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