Announcement: Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law

May 17, 2017

Dear campus community,

I am very pleased to announce that Erwin Chemerinsky, current and founding Dean of the UC Irvine School of Law, has been appointed to be the next Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. He will begin his five-year term on July 1st.

One of the nation’s foremost scholars of constitutional law and federal civil procedure, Dean Chemerinsky is also a skilled administrator who, in less than a decade, built UCI Law from its founding into an institution whose faculty rank among the top in the country in scholarly impact, and whose student body admissions qualifications are comparable with the nation’s best law schools. Over the course of nine years, Dean Chemerinsky has been a central figure in the creation of UCI Law’s experiential learning-focused teaching philosophy, as well as in its highly successful faculty recruitment, curriculum development, fundraising, and strategic planning efforts.

As a professor and legal scholar, Dean Chemerinsky prizes public service and embodies the role of a public intellectual. He is the author of ten books and more than 200 law review articles, a weekly column for the Orange County Register, monthly columns for the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, and regular op-eds in newspapers across the country. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court. Dean Chemerinsky’s support for public service at UCI Law has placed the institution among the very top law schools in terms of number of federal clerkships, graduates in government and public interest jobs, and community service contribution. In January 2017, National Jurist magazine named him the most influential person in legal education in the United States.

Dean Chemerinsky graduated from Northwestern University in 1975, and received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1978. Prior to assuming his deanship at Irvine, he was a professor at Duke Law School and the University of Southern California Law School.

Dean Chemerinsky’s appointment comes at the end of a thorough search process, and I would like to extend my thanks to search committee chair Dean Henry Brady, the entire search committee, and everyone in the extended Berkeley Law community who provided feedback on the next dean. I would like to also extend particular thanks to Berkeley Law Interim Dean Melissa Murray, who took the reins at a difficult time and has provided steadfast leadership over the course of the past year.

Dean Chemerinsky is an acclaimed researcher, gifted teacher, and accomplished administrator, and I believe he will be a phenomenal leader for our law school, someone who will ensure that Berkeley Law remains not only a powerhouse of legal scholarship and training, but also a community built on mutual respect and inclusion.

Please join me in welcoming Erwin Chemerinsky to our campus.

Sincerely,

Carol Christ

Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

Chancellor-designate