Prof. James Chen

Jim Chen joined the University of Louisville in January 2007, where he served as dean of Louis D. Brandeis School of Law from 2007-2012. Professor Chen is a prolific and influential scholar whose works span subjects such as administrative law, agricultural law, constitutional law, economic regulation, environmental law, industrial policy, legislation, and natural resources law. He is the coauthor of Disasters and the Law: Katrina and Beyond (Aspen Publishers, 2006), the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the legal issues surrounding natural disasters. This pathbreaking book is now in its second edition under the title Disaster Law and Policy. He provides expert advice on the law of regulated industries, particularly telecommunications. Professor Chen has also taught courses in criminal law and food and drug law.

Professor Chen's lectures have spanned fifteen countries, four continents, and three languages. In 1995, he held a chaire départementale in the Faculté de Droit et des Sciences Politiques of the Université de Nantes. In 1999, he became the first American to teach law as a visiting professor at Heinrich-Heine Universität in Düsseldorf. He taught in 2000 at Slovenská Pol'nohospodárska Univerzita v Nitre (the Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra).

From July 1993 to January 2007, Professor Chen taught at the University of Minnesota Law School. In his final years at Minnesota, Professor Chen served as that school's associate dean. He was an editor of Constitutional Commentary and the faculty editor-in-chief of the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology. He also served as faculty advisor to the Minnesota Law Review and Law & Inequality. Within the University of Minnesota's Conservation Biology Program, Professor Chen served as a member of the graduate faculty.

Professor Chen received his B.A. degree, summa cum laude, and his M.A. degree from Emory University. After studying as a Fulbright Scholar at Háskóli Íslands (the University of Iceland), he earned his J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from the Harvard Law School, where he served as an executive editor of the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.