William S. Dodge, Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Research

Professor Dodge specializes in international law, international transactions, and international dispute resolution. He currently serves as Co-Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law: Jurisdiction and Judgments and as a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law. From 2011 to 2012, he was the Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.

Professor Dodge is a coauthor (with Detlev Vagts and Harold Koh) of the casebook Transnational Business Problems (4th ed. Foundation Press 2008) and a coeditor (with David Sloss and Michael Ramsey) of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge University Press 2011), which won the American Society of International Law’s 2012 certificate of merit. He has more than 40 other publications in books and law reviews. His articles have been cited twenty times in court opinions, including three times by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Professor Dodge received his B.A. in History, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1986. After three semesters teaching English in Tianjin, China, he attended Yale Law School, where he was a Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal, served as Director of the Lowenstein International Human Rights Project, and earned his J.D. in 1991. Following graduation, Professor Dodge clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court. From 1993 to 1995, he was an attorney at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C. He joined the UC Hastings faculty in 1995.

Courses Taught: International Business Transactions and Contracts

Expertise: International Law, International Transactions, International Dispute Resolution, History of International Law in U.S. Courts, Contracts and the CISG

What I hope you get from a legal education at UC Hastings is... a knowledge of how our legal system fits with the rest of the world, knowledge that is indispensable for lawyers practicing in the twenty-first century.