Biography

A productive scholar and award-winning teacher, Pamela S. Karlan is also the founding director of the school’s extraordinarily successful 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 and an assistant counsel and cooperating attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Professor Karlan is the co-author of three leading casebooks on constitutional law and related subjects, as well as more than four dozen scholarly articles. She is a widely recognized commentator on legal issues.

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 of the American Law Institute.

Key Works

• Goodwin Liu, Pamela S. Karlan, and Christopher H. Schroeder, Keeping Faith with the Constitution, Washington, DC: American Constitution Society, May 2009.
• Pamela S. Karlan, What Can Brown® Do For You?: Neutral Principles and the Struggle Over the Equal Protection Clause, 58 Duke Law Journal 1049 (March 2009).
• Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela S. Karlan and Richard H. Pildes, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process, New York: Foundation Press, 3rd ed., August 2007.
• Pamela S. Karlan, The Paradoxical Structure of Constitutional Litigation, 75 Fordham Law Review 1913 (2007).
• Pamela S. Karlan, John C. Jeffries, Jr., Peter W. Low and George A. Rutherglen, Civil Rights Actions: Enforcing the Constitution, New York: Foundation Press, 2nd ed., 2007.
• Pamela S. Karlan. With Geoffry R. Stone, Louis Michael Seidman, Cass R. Sunstein, and Mark V. Tushnet, Constitutional Law, 5th ed., New York: Aspen Publishers, 2005.

In the News

• Reformers Hope High Court Decision Will Kill Judicial Elections
  Law.com, February 01, 2010
• Justices Turn Minor Movie Case Into a Blockbuster
  The New York Times, January 23, 2010
• Scholars Take On Corruption In Judicial Elections
  The Harvard Law Record, January 14, 2010
• O'Connor Will Keynote Forum On Supreme Court Election Cases
  The Blog Of Legal Times, January 14, 2010
• Former Clerks Are Sitting Pretty
  Daily Journal, January 04, 2010

Courses & Programs

Courses

• Constitutional Law I
• Constitutional Litigation
• Regulation of the Political Process
• Supreme Court Litigation Clinic

Programs

• Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, Co-Director

Publications & Cases

Recent Publications View All

• Pamela S. Karlan, Constitutional Law as Trademark, 43 UC Davis Law Review 385 (2009).
• Geoffrey R. Stone, Louis Michael Seidman, Cass R. Sunstein, Mark V. Tushnet, and Pamela S. Karlan, Constitutional Law, New York: Wolters Kluwer, 6th ed., 2009.
• Pamela S. Karlan, Validating Congress's Approach, Room For Debate: A Running Commentary on the News, New York Times, June 22, 2009.
• Pamela S. Karlan, Voting Rights and the Third Reconstruction, in The Constitution in 2020, Jack M. Balkin and Reva B. Siegel, eds., New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Goodwin Liu, Pamela S. Karlan, and Christopher H. Schroeder, Keeping Faith with the Constitution, Washington, DC: American Constitution Society, May 2009.
• Pamela S. Karlan, Any Gains Could Easily Be Lost, Room For Debate: A Running Commentary on the News, New York Times, April 29, 2009.
• Pamela S. Karlan, What Can Brown® Do For You?: Neutral Principles and the Struggle Over the Equal Protection Clause, 58 Duke Law Journal 1049 (March 2009).
• Pamela S. Karlan, The Law of Small Numbers: Gonzales v. Carhart, Parents Involved in Community Schools, and Some Themes From the First Full Term of the Roberts Court, 86 North Carolina Law Review 1369 (June 2008).
• Pamela S. Karlan, Thomas C. Goldstein, Reid H. Weingarten and Amy Howe, Petition for a Writ of Certiorari: Kay v. United States of America, No. 07- in the Supreme Court of the United States (April 9, 2008).
• Thomas C. Goldstein, Kevin K. Russell, Kassius O. Benson and Pamela S. Karlan, Reply Brief for the Petitioner: Greenlaw v. United States of America, No. 07-330 in the Supreme Court of the United States (April 8, 2008).

Affiliations & Honors

Professional Affiliations

• 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

Honors and Awards

• 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