Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky
Erwin Chemerinsky speaking at the William & Mary School of Law in September 2007.
Born	(1953-05-14) May 14, 1953 (age 63) Chicago, Illinois
Nationality	United States
Fields	Constitutional law, civil procedure
Institutions	DePaul College of Law (1980–83) University of Southern California Law School (1983–2004) Duke School of Law (2004–2008) University of California, Irvine School of Law (2008–present)
Alma mater	Northwestern University (1975) Harvard Law School (1978)

Erwin Chemerinsky (born May 14, 1953) is an American lawyer and law professor. He is a prominent scholar in United States constitutional law and federal civil procedure. He is the current and founding dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, which began classes in the fall semester of 2009.

A study of legal publications between 2009 and 2013 found Chemerinsky to be the second-most frequently cited American legal scholar, behind Cass Sunstein and ahead of Richard A. Epstein.

Raised in a working-class Jewish family on Chicago's South Side, Chemerinsky attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools for high school. He earned a bachelor's degree in communication from Northwestern University in 1975, where he competed as a debater. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. He graduated cum laude in 1978.

Chemerinsky taught for over twenty years at the University of Southern California Law School and at DePaul University College of Law before moving to Duke University on July 1, 2004, and then UC Irvine in July 2008.