Erwin Chemerinksy
Dean and Professor, UC Berkeley School of Law
Founding Chair of the Initiative
Erwin Chemerinsky is Dean and Professor at UC Berkeley School of Law. Prior to becoming Dean of Berkeley Law, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at UC Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. Previously, he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University, and before that was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. Dean Chemerinsky is one of the most cited legal scholars in the country. Publications and CV
Anne Bloom
Executive Director
Anne Bloom has a distinguished record of accomplishment in both academia and public interest law. Before becoming the Executive Director of the Civil Justice Research Initiative, she was the Director of Public Programs for Equal Justice Works in Washington, D.C. and Associate Director of the Civil Justice Program at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Prior to that, she was Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Law at McGeorge Law School where she taught courses in litigation, law and politics, and public interest law. Before becoming a professor, Anne was a staff attorney at Public Justice in Washington, D.C. She holds both a J.D. and a Ph.D. in political science and has authored many articles on civil justice-related subjects. Her most recent publication is a co-edited volume with David M. Engel and Michael McCann, Injury and Injustice: The Cultural Politics of Harm and Redress (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Publications and CV
Roman Silberfeld
Founding Chair, Advisory Board
Mr. Silberfeld serves as the managing partner of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P.’s Los Angeles office, and is a member of the firm’s Executive Board. Mr. Silberfeld has served numerous times as court-appointed lead counsel of litigation committees in multi-party, complex litigation. In Celador International, Ltd. v. The Walt Disney Company, he represented the creator of the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” game show in a breach of contract lawsuit against Disney and its subsidiaries, ultimately obtaining a federal jury award of nearly $319 million. Mr. Silberfeld’s professional recognitions include being named one of the“500 Leading Lawyers in America” by Lawdragon, a “Top 100 Lawyers in California” by the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and a “Who’s Who In L.A. Law” by The Los Angeles Business Journal. He was named a “Power Lawyer” by The Hollywood Reporter and a “Winning Litigator” in The National Law Journal. He was named one of the “California Attorneys of the Year” by California Lawyer and given the “Excellence in Advocacy Award” by the Beverly Hills Bar Association. He has been named a Southern California Super Lawyer since 2004. Mr. Silberfeld is currently a board member and former Chair of Public Counsel, the nation’s largest pro bono law firm. Loyola Law School named Mr. Silberfeld “Trial Lawyer of the Year,” and Public Counsel awarded him with its Founders Award for his commitment to justice, an award only awarded five times in the past 45 years.
Andrew Bradt
Faculty Director
Andrew Bradt’s primary scholarly interests are in the areas of civil procedure, conflict of laws, and remedies. His current research focuses on the adaptation of procedural and choice-of-law systems to large-scale multijurisdictional litigation, with a particular interest in federal multidistrict litigation. In 2019, he received Berkeley Law’s Rutter Award for Teaching Distinction. Bradt’s scholarship has been published in numerous law journals and has been cited by both courts and prominent legal treatises. He is a co-author, with Geoffrey C. Hazard, William A. Fletcher, and Stephen McG. Bundy, of Pleading and Procedure—Cases and Materials (12th ed., Foundation Press, 2020), and a co-author, with Edward Sherman, Richard Marcus, and Howard Erichson, of the forthcoming Complex Litigation—Cases and Materials on Advanced Civil Procedure (7th ed., West Academic). In 2018, Bradt was appointed by the Counselor to the Chief Justice of the United States to the Supreme Court Fellows Program’s Academic Advisory Board. In 2019, he was elected to the membership of the American Law Institute, and he serves on the Members Consultative Groups for the Restatement (Third), Conflict of Laws, and the Restatement (Third), Torts: Remedies. Immediately prior to joining the Berkeley Law faculty, Bradt was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. Before entering academia, Bradt worked as a litigator in the Issues & Appeals Group at Jones Day in New York City, and at Ropes & Gray in Boston. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Robert A. Katzmann of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Honorable Patti B. Saris of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He is a member of the state bars of Massachusetts and New York. Bradt graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he received the Joseph H. Beale Prize for Conflict of Laws, and summa cum laude from Harvard College, where he concentrated in Social Studies.