Bio

Paul Schiff Berman serves as the 18th dean of The George Washington University Law School, a school dedicated to teaching and scholarship that emphasizes law in action in the nation’s capital. He joined GW Law in 2011, bringing experience as both an academic administrator and as a renowned teacher and scholar. Dean Berman’s scholarly work focuses on the ways in which globalization affects the intersection of legal systems.

From 2008 to 2011, Dean Berman served as dean and Foundation Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where he helped to transform the school and build an innovative and expansive model for 21st century public legal education. Among his many accomplishments Dean Berman exponentially increased programmatic offerings and pathways for students while significantly raising the national and international profile of the school. Previously, Dean Berman was the Jesse Root Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law. For the 2006–07 academic year, Dean Berman was a visiting professor and visiting research scholar at Princeton University in the Program in Law and Public Affairs. He also has served on the Organizing Committee of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities.

Dean Berman is the author of numerous books and scholarly journal articles. His most recent book, Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence for Law Beyond Borders, will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2011. He also is a sought-after speaker at invited lectures and at conferences and symposia nationwide. He is frequently cited as an expert in media, radio, and television outlets, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Forbes, ABC News, NBC News, and the BBC.

Dean Berman graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1988 and earned his law degree from New York University in 1995. During law school, Dean Berman served as managing editor of the NYU Law Review and received the University Graduation Prize for the graduating law student with the highest cumulative grade point average. He later clerked for Chief Judge Harry T. Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Prior to entering law school, Dean Berman was a professional theater director in New York City and artistic director of Spin Theater, a not-for-profit theater company. He was also administrative director of two other not-for-profit theater companies in New York City: The Wooster Group and Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theatre at St. Mark’s Church.