- Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law
- Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic
- Pronouns: she/her
Expertise
- Civil Rights
- Clinical Education
- Constitutional Law
- Equal Protection
- Public Interest Practice
- Supreme Court
- Voting Rights & Election Law
Biography
A productive scholar and an award-winning teacher, Pamela S. Karlan is co-director of the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, where students litigate live cases before the Court. One of the nation’s leading experts on voting and the political process, she has served as a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission, an assistant counsel and cooperating attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and (twice) as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (where she received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service – the department’s highest award for employee performance – as part of the team responsible for implementing the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor). Professor Karlan is the co-author of leading casebooks on constitutional law, constitutional litigation, and the law of democracy, as well as numerous scholarly articles. She is co-reporter on the American Law Institute’s forthcoming Restatement on Constitutional Torts.
Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1998, she was a professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law and served as a law clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Abraham D. Sofaer of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Karlan is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute.
Education
- BA Yale University 1980
- MA Yale University University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1984
- JD Yale Law School 1984
Related Organizations
Courses
- Advanced Supreme Court Litigation Clinic
- Constitutional Law: The Fourteenth Amendment
- Constitutional Law: The Fourteenth Amendment
- Criminal Law
- Directed Professional Writing
- Directed Research
- Discussion (1L): Exit, Voice, and Loyalty for Lawyers
- Externship, Special Circumstances
- Supreme Court Litigation Clinic: Clinical Coursework
- Supreme Court Litigation Clinic: Clinical Methods
- Supreme Court Litigation Clinic: Clinical Practice
Affiliations & Honors
- Member, American Law Institute
- Cooperating Attorney, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund
- Former Commissioner, California Fair Political Practices Commission
- Affiliated Faculty, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
- Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Recipient, University of Virginia All-University Outstanding Teaching Award, 1995-96
- Recipient, State Council on Higher Education in Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, 1997
- Recipient, John Bingham Hurlbut Award for Excellence in Teaching, Stanford, 2002
- Honoree, The Public Sector 45, American Lawyer, 1997
Faculty on Point | Prof. Pam Karlan on the Law of Democracy
Supreme Court Litigation Clinic
Stanford’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic—the first of its kind at any law school—gives students the opportunity to explore a realm few lawyers experience in their careers: the Supreme Court of the United States. Under the direction of two faculty members, who collectively have argued over thirty Supreme Court cases, clinic members work on real Supreme Court cases, representing parties and amici curiae.
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