Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012
Professor Pamela Karlan, Stanford Law School
Pam Karlan is a Professor at Stanford Law School and co-director of the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. The Clinic represents a wide variety of clients, including voters; workers raising claims under federal employment laws; criminal defendants; members of Congress; and nonprofit organizations such as the California Medical Association, the National School Boards Association, the National Women’s Law Center, and the California Correctional Peace Officers’ Association.
Professor Karlan received her B.A., M.A., and J.D. from Yale. She clerked for Judge Abraham D. Sofaer of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court. From 1986 to 1988, she served as assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she specialized in voting rights and employment discrimination litigation. She remains a cooperating attorney with the Fund. From 2003 to 2005, she served on the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
Professor Karlan’s primary scholarly interests lie in the areas of constitutional law and litigation. She has published dozens of scholarly articles. She is the co-author of several leading casebooks, as well as a monograph on constitutional interpretation – Keeping Faith With The Constitution, published in 2010 by Oxford University Press. Karlan is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is noted on lists of potential nominees for the United States Supreme Court should a vacancy occur.
Click here for more information regarding the Constitutional Law Center Distinguished Lecture Series.