Biography

A law professor and a sociologist, Michele Landis Dauber has written highly original historical and sociological studies about the relationship between welfare programs and disaster relief programs in the formation of the modern American welfare state. She has focused her scholarship on aspects of the history of the New Deal and the fate of the legal doctrines and policies it created. She has also written about such varied topics as abortion clinic conflict, social security privatization, affirmative action, and the early history of administrative law during the War of 1812. In addition to her scholarly work, Professor Dauber is an officer and director of Building a Better Legal Profession, which was founded by Stanford Law students in 2007. The organization uses innovative data advocacy and Web-based social entrepreneurship strategies to mobilize market pressure for workplace reforms in large law firms, including better working conditions, work-life policies, and increased racial and gender diversity. Currently Professor Dauber teaches Law and Wikinomics, which studies this issue.

Winner of the 2006 Walter J. Gores Award, Professor Dauber is only the second law professor to receive the highest teaching honor at Stanford University. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2001, she was a clerk to Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Professor Dauber has an appointment (by courtesy) with the Stanford University Department of Sociology and is a faculty affiliate with the Stanford Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.

Courses & Programs

Courses

• Economic and Social Organization of the Legal Profession
• History and Future of the New Deal State
• Sociology of Law
• Workshop in Sociology of Law

Publications & Cases

Recent Publications View All

• Michele Landis Dauber, A Note on BBLP, in The Building a Better Legal Profession's Guide to Law Firms: The Law Student's Guide to Finding the Perfect Law Firm Job, Irene Hahn, ed., New York: Kaplan Pub., January 2009.
• Michele Landis Dauber, Social Security Privatization: a Disaster, Stanford Lawyer, Winter 2005, p. 40.
• Michele Landis Dauber, Book Review: Public Pensions: Gender and Civil Service in the States by Susan Sterett, 3 Perspectives on Politics 166-167 (2005).
• Michele Landis Dauber, Book Review: Public Pensions: Gender and Civil Service in the States, 1850-1937 by Susan Sterett, 3 Perspectives on Politics 166 (2005).
• Michele Landis Dauber, Judicial Review and the Power of the Purse, 23 Law and History Review 451 (2005).
• Michele Landis Dauber, Judicial Review and the Power of the Purse (Forum: Response), 23 Law and History Review 451-458 (2005).
• Michele Landis Dauber, The Big Muddy, 57 Stanford Law Review 1899 (2005).
• Michele Landis Dauber, The Sympathetic State, 23 Law and History Review 387 (2005).
• Michele Landis Dauber, The Sympathetic State. (Forum: Overtaken by a Great Calamity: Disaster Relief and the Origin of the American Welfare State), 23 Law and History Review 387-442 (2005).
• Michele Landis Dauber, The Hazards and Vicissitudes of Social Security Privatization, Center for American Progress. Progress Report. (September 3, 2004).

Affiliations & Honors

Professional Affiliations

• Director, JD/PhD program in sociology and law
• Secretary-Treasurer and Member, Board of the Delano Foundation for Law in the Public Interest, Yale Law School
• Committee Member, Chicago Scholarship Association, University of Illinois

Honors and Awards

• Recipient, Stanford University Walter J. Gores Award, 2006