Richard Boswell

Professor of Law

Office: 350-200
Email: boswellr@uclawsf.edu
Phone: (415) 565-4633

Bio

Professor Boswell joined the full-time faculty at UC Law SF after teaching as a visiting professor in 1990. He received his B.A. in Urban Economics from Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles and his J.D. from the George Washington University National Law Center where he was a member of the Journal of International Law & Economics. He was in private practice and later joined the faculty of the George Washington University National Law Center where he founded the law school’s immigration clinic and directed their Trial Practice Program. Working his way west, he joined the law faculty at the Notre Dame in 1986.

Professor Boswell has written extensively in the field of immigration law and is the author of more than 11 books and more than 17 articles. His major books include Immigration Law & Procedure: Cases and Materials (5th ed. 2018), Refugee Law & Policy: a Comparative and International Approach (5th Ed. 2018) (coauthored with Karen Musalo and Jennifer Moore) and Essentials of Immigration Law (5th ed. 2020). He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees and is a frequent lecturer on immigration law both nationally and internationally. Most recently he has served as Special Master for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in Catholic Social Services, et al. v. Napolitano, a class action involving the 1986 immigration amnesty.

As one of the founders of the Clinical Education Association, he served as its President in 1994. He served as coeditor-in-chief of the Clinical Law Review for 5 years (1997-2002) and remains as an ex-officio member of its Board of Editors. The Clinical Law Review is a peer reviewed law journal of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), the New York University Law School and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). In addition to his work in clinical legal education, Professor Boswell has worked on rule of law/justice projects in Central Asia, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Palestine, Panama and Venezuela and most recently in Haiti. His current scholarly work involves a comparative study of the immigration laws of more than seven countries covering a broad range of legal systems.