Pamela Karlan Attorney


Pamela Karlan Attorney Introduction

Pamela Susan Karlan (born February 1, 1959) is an American professor of law at Stanford Law School. A leading legal scholar on voting rights and political process, she served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Voting Rights in the United States Department of Justice Civil Division from 2014 to 2015. 


Pamela Karlan Attorney Education / Academics 

Karlan earned her B.A. degree in history from Yale University in 1980, as well as an M.A. degree in history and J.D. degree in 1984. At Yale Law School, she served as an article and book reviews editor of the Yale Law Journal.
After graduation from law school, Karlan worked as a law clerk for former U.S. District Judge Abraham David Sofaer of the Southern District of New York from 1984 to 1985. She went on to clerk for U.S.


Pamela Karlan Attorney Career 

 After her clerkships, Karlan worked as an assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1986 to 1988.

From 1988 to 1998, Karlan taught law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she won the All-University Outstanding Teaching Award in 1995–96 and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia's Outstanding Faculty Award in 1997. In 1998, Karlan joined the faculty of Stanford Law School. She is the school's Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law. In 2004, Karlan cofounded the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, through which students litigate live cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.[3] In 2002, Karlan won the school's prestigious John Bingham Hurlbut Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Karlan has frequently commented on legal matters for PBS NewsHour. During the disputed 2000 presidential election, she appeared regularly in the news media to discuss its comportment with constitutional law. In the aftermath of the election, Karlan, Samuel Issacharoff, and Richard Pildes adapted two chapters from the law school casebook that they co-authored into a book entitled, When Elections Go Bad: The Law of Democracy and the Presidential Election of 2000.[citation needed]

On December 4, 2019, Karlan—alongside law professors Noah Feldman, Michael Gerhardt, and Jonathan Turley—testified before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment in the Impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.[6]

Karlan is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and the American Law Institute.


Pamela Karlan Attorney Personal Life 

Karlan told Politico in 2009, "It's no secret at all that I'm counted among the LGBT crowd". She has described herself as an example of "snarky, bisexual, Jewish women". Her partner is writer Viola Canales.