Heather Kristin Gerken (born ) is an American legal scholar who serves as the

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

, where she teaches election law and runs the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project.

Biography

Early life and education

Gerken grew up in Bolton, Massachusetts. Gerken graduated ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

with an A.B. in history in 1991 after completing a 123-page long senior thesis titled "Stepping Out of the Bounds of Womanhood: An Analysis of the Popular Image of Women and Women's Experiences during World War II". In 1994, she graduated from the

University of Michigan Law School The University of Michigan Law School (Michigan Law) is the law school of the University of Michigan, a Public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1859, the school offers Master of Laws (LLM), Master of C ...

, ''summa cum laude'', and

Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif is an honor society for United States law school graduates. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of advocates, the serjeants-at-law, whose courtroom attire included a coif—a white lawn or silk skullcap, whi ...

, where she served as editor-in-chief of the ''

Michigan Law Review The ''Michigan Law Review'' is an American law review and the flagship law journal of the University of Michigan Law School. History The ''Michigan Law Review'' was established in 1902, after Gustavus Ohlinger, a student in the Law Department ...

''. She clerked for Judge

Stephen R. Reinhardt Stephen Roy Reinhardt (born Stephen Roy Shapiro; March 27, 1931 – March 29, 2018) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with chambers in Los Angeles, California. He was the last federal ...

of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then for Justice

David Souter David Hackett Souter ( ; born September 17, 1939) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1990 until his retirement in 2009. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to fill the seat t ...

of the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

during the 1995 Term.

Legal career

She was an associate at

Jenner & Block Jenner & Block is an American law firm with offices in Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. The firm is active in corporate litigation, business transactions, the public sector, and other legal fields. ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, from December 1996 to July 2000. From July 2000 to June 2006, she was a professor at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

, where she was also a fellow at the Harvard University Center for Ethics and the Profession from September 2003 to July 2004. In 2006 Gerken joined Yale Law School and in 2008 she became the inaugural J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law. In 2009, in her book The Democracy Index (Princeton University Press), she proposed an index that would rate and compare the performance of elections systems at the state and local levels, to evaluate and improve the U.S. elections system. She became dean of

in 2017, and in the same year she was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. In 2021, she was named to the Presidential Commission on the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, created by President Joe Biden in order to "provide an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform" in the context of evaluating the history and future of the court and its practices. In January 2022, Yale University President

Peter Salovey Peter Salovey (; born February 21, 1958) is an American social psychologist and current President of Yale University. He previously served as Yale's Provost, Dean of Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Dean of Yale College. Salovey i ...

announced that Gerken had been reappointed as Dean of Yale Law School for a second five-year term.

Personal life

Gerken is married to David Simon.

Bibliography

* ''The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System is Failing and How to Fix It'' (

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...

2009) *
Slipping the Bonds of Federalism
, 128 ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...

'' 85 (2014) * "The Political Safeguards of Horizontal Federalism", 113 ''

'' 57 (2014) (with Ari Holtzblatt) * "The Real Problem with Citizens United: Campaign Finance, Dark Money, and Shadow Parties", 97 ''

Marquette Law Review The ''Marquette Law Review'' is a quarterly law review edited by students at Marquette University Law School. Articles, essays, and student-written notes and comments from the review are accessible in PDF format on its web site, as well as online ...

'' 904 (2014) * "Uncooperative Federalism", 118 ''

Yale Law Journal The ''Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ), known also as the ''Yale Law Review'', is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students ...

'' 1256 (2009) (with Jessica Bulman-Pozen)

References

External links

Appearances
on C-Span.org
Bio
Yale Law School {{DEFAULTSORT:Gerken, Heather 1969 births American lawyers American legal scholars American legal writers American women academics Deans of Yale Law School Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard Law School faculty Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Deans of law schools in the United States Living people People associated with Jenner & Block People from Bolton, Massachusetts Princeton University alumni University of Michigan Law School alumni Women deans (academic) Yale University faculty 20th-century American women lawyers 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American women lawyers 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century American academics