Daniel B. Rodriguez

Daniel B. Rodriguez is the Dean of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and holds the Harold Washington Professorship. He was the 2014 President of the Association of American Law Schools, and currently serves on the American Bar Association's Commission on the Future of Legal Services.

Rodriguez's scholarship is in the areas of administrative law, local government law, statutory interpretation, and state constitutional law. He is a leader in the application of political economy to the study of public law and has authored or co-authored a series of influential articles and book chapters in this vein. He has consulted with federal, state, and local agencies and with individuals and institutions in litigation and statutory drafting contexts. Rodriguez has testified before legislative committees and working groups and has served in various professional leadership roles, including as a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools and the Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice of the American Bar Association. He was elected to the American Law Institute in 1997 and was elected to the ALI Council in 2012. He is also a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Rodriguez assumed his role as Dean and Harold Washington Professor at Northwestern Law on January 1, 2012. Prior to his appointment at Northwestern, Rodriguez served as Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law at the University of Texas from 2007 to 2011. While at Texas, he was also a professor of government (by courtesy) and a Research Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Before joining the Texas faculty, Rodriguez served as Dean and Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law. He began his academic career at the University of California, Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law. In addition, he has been a visiting professor of law at Columbia University, University of Southern California, University of Illinois, and University of Virginia and also at the Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Rodriguez received his law degree from Harvard in 1987. His undergraduate degree is from the California State University, Long Beach, and he is a recipient of that school’s distinguished alumnus award. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

• State Constitutional Law and its Processes (Aspen Press, forthcoming, 2012)
• Losing Ground: A Nation on Edge, (co-edited with John Nolon, Pace University School of Law) (Environmental Law Institute Press, 2007)
• "Change that Matters: An Essay on State Constitutional Development", Penn St. Law Review (symposium issue) (forthcoming, 2011)