Diego A. Zambrano’s primary research and teaching interests lie in the areas of civil procedure and comparative law. A central focus of his research is private enforcement—the distinctively American phenomenon of regulating major policy areas through private litigation rather than public agencies. Professor Zambrano is authoring a book on this subject, How Americans Enforce the Law, which traces the historical roots of this regulatory approach and evaluates where private enforcement is effective and where it falls short, including his critique of its use in areas like environmental law. He also has an interest in comparative constitutional law and legal developments related to Latin America. Professor Zambrano is the Associate Dean for Global Programs and faculty director of the Neukom Center for the Rule of Law. In 2021, Professor Zambrano received the Barbara Allen Babcock Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Professor Zambrano’s scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming at the Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Stanford Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review, among other journals, and has been honored by the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) and the National Civil Justice Institute. Professor Zambrano is a co-author of the leading casebook Civil Procedure: A Modern Approach (8th ed. 2024) (with Marcus, Pfander, and Redish). In addition, Professor Zambrano served as chair of the Federal Courts Section of the AALS. He also writes about legal issues for broader public audiences, with his contributions appearing in the Journal of Democracy, Wall Street Journal, BBC News, and Lawfare.

After graduating with honors from Harvard Law School in 2013, Professor Zambrano spent three years as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb in New York, focusing on transnational litigation and arbitration. Before joining Stanford Law School in 2018, Professor Zambrano was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.

Professor Zambrano’s forthcoming publications include: “Informal Norms in Judicial Selection” and “Private Enforcement at the Founding and Article II.” For a list of recent papers, visit his SSRN page.