Morris
Ratner
Provost & Academic Dean, Professor of Law
- Office 355-200
- Email Address ratnerm@uchastings.edu
- Telephone (415) 581-8853
Biography
Provost & Academic Dean Morris Ratner (BA, Stanford University 1988; JD, Harvard Law School 1991) manages and supports the faculty and all academic programs, including clinics, centers, academic support, career development, and the legal writing program. In addition, he manages and supports associate and assistant deans responsible for degree programs or departments (e.g., Global Programs, the LLM, MSL, and HPL degrees, and the Library), oversees the Assistant Dean of Students, and manages the classroom budget. (Provost & Dean Ratner has served in this role since 2017. In 2021, the UC Law SF Board of Directors and Chancellor & Dean reappointed him for a second term.)
Consistent with the College’s mission and strategic plan and the vision of its Chancellor & Dean, Provost & Dean Ratner’s priorities include:
- Creating a cohesive student experience from admission through graduation that prepares students for professional success;
- Adapting the curriculum to anticipate technological and other changes in the practice of law;
- Collaborating with faculty and staff to develop innovative teaching methods, courses, and co-curricular programming;
- Supporting faculty research and faculty and staff professional development;
- Integrating faculty, students, alumni, and the wider community in which UC Law SF is situated;
- Promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion; and
- Fostering a culture of continuous and evidence-based self-reflection and improvement.
Provost & Dean Ratner joined the UC Law SF Faculty in 2012 after teaching at Harvard Law School as a visiting lecturer and then as a visiting assistant professor from 2009 to 2011. He teaches civil procedure, legal ethics, and the business of law practice, and produces scholarship at the intersection of those fields.
While at UC Law SF, Provost & Dean Ratner has received multiple awards for his teaching and scholarship, including Student Choice Award for Professor of the Year (twice) and the Rutter Award for Teaching Excellence, as well as the Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility awarded by the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility.
Provost & Dean Ratner was a litigator at the San Francisco-based plaintiffs’ firm Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, where he was a partner for ten years and where he prosecuted product liability, environmental, mass personal injury, consumer, and human rights actions. Among other high-profile matters, he prosecuted and settled Holocaust-era slave labor, looted asset, dormant bank account and unpaid insurance claims against European companies, producing global settlements in those cases worth more than $7.5 billion.
Expertise
Education
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Harvard Law School 1991
J.D., Law
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Stanford University 1988
B.A., Economics
Accomplishments
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Subject of UC Law SF Faculty Resolution of Appreciation 2022
Honored with "resolution of appreciation" adopted by the UC Law SF faculty in Spring 2022 for efforts to steer the academic program through the pandemic.
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Submission of Final Report for AccessLex Insitute Grant 2022
Submitted final report titled "Determinants of Success on the Bar Exam: One Law School’sExperience 2010-2022" with co-authorsStephen N. Goggin,Stefano Moscato,Margaret Greer,& Elizabeth McGriff. The report analyzes 13 years of data to identify academic program design choices that positively impacted student success on the California Bar Exam. Visit the AccessLex website to obtain more information about the report.
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AccessLex Grant Awardee 2021
Awarded grant by AccessLex to study bar success interventions that improve bar passage rates, with special emphasis on diverse students.
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Selected Presenter, Vanderbilt Law School's Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program 2017 New Voices Workshop 2017
The Branstetter Program supports research and curriculum in civil litigation and dispute resolution. Held annually, the Branstetter New Voices Workshop brings together junior scholars, senior scholars, and Vanderbilt faculty in the areas of civil justice. Each year, junior scholars are selected via a blind review process to present at the New Voices Workshop.
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Student Choice Award: Professor of the Year 2017
Conferred by the Associated Students of UC Law SF College of the Law
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"Outstanding Contribution to UC Law SF" Award 2017
Conferred by UC College of the Law, San Francisco
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Co-winner of the sixth annual Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility 2015 2015
Awarded by the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility for Class Counsel as Litigation Funders, 28 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 271 (2015)
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Rutter Award for Teaching Excellence 2015-2016
The William and Sally Rutter Award for Teaching Excellence - Outstanding Professor of the Year 2015-2016
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Student Choice Award: Professor of the Year 2015 2015
Conferred by the Associated Students of UC Law SF
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Visionary Service Award 2014
Conferred by the UC College of the Law SF Board of Trustees.
Selected Scholarship
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MDL Problems – A Brief Introduction and Summary 2018
37 Review of Litigation 123
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Class Conflicts 2017
Washington Law Review
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Restraining Lawyers: From "Cases" to "Tasks" 2017
Fordham Law Review
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Judicial Ethical Integrity: Challenges and Solutions 2016
Hastings International & Comparative Law Review
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Class Counsel as Litigation Funders 2015
Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics
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Profit for Costs 2014
DePaul Law Review
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Achieving Procedural Goals Through Indirection: The Use of Ethics Doctrine to Justify Contingency Fee Caps in MDL Aggregate Settlements 2013
Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics
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A New Model of Plaintiffs' Class Action Attorneys 2012
Review of Litigation
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The Legacy of Holocaust Class Action Suits: Have They Broken Ground for Other Cases of Historical Wrongs? (with Caryn Becker) 2006
Book chapter in Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy (M. J. Bazyler & R. P. Alford, eds. 2005)
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Factors Impacting the Selection and Positioning of Human Rights Class Actions in United States Courts: A Practical Overview 2003
New York University Annual Survey of American Law
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The Settlement of Nazi-Era Litigation Through the Executive and Judicial Branches 2002
Berkeley Journal of International Law
