Evan H. Caminker, the Branch Rickey Collegiate Professor of Law, served as dean of Michigan Law from 2003 to 2013. During his tenure, he helped design and oversee a significant expansion and renovation of the Law School’s historic facilities, emphasized and shaped a curricular and co-curricular focus on skills-based and experiential learning, and helped nurture the culture at Michigan Law that creates a vibrant and collegial student-faculty community.

Caminker recently spent several years (both full- and part-time) serving as a special assistant US attorney for the Detroit office, where he specialized in appellate litigation. He writes, teaches, and litigates about various issues of American constitutional law, including individual rights, allocation of governmental powers, and judicial decision-making. Caminker has taught in the fields of appellate advocacy, constitutional law, federal courts, and civil procedure, and has lectured widely before various professional, scholarly, and student audiences.

He came to Michigan Law from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, where he was a faculty member from 1991 to 1999. He also practiced law with the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles and with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, DC. From May 2000 through January 2001, he served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, US Department of Justice.

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Areas of Interest

Education
  • University of California, Los Angeles, BA, summa cum laude, political economy and environmental studies
  • Yale University, JD

    • Recent Courses

    Clerkships

    • US Supreme Court, Justice William Brennan Jr.
    • US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Hon. William Norris

    Featured Scholarship

    "Channeling a Federal Right to Education through State Constitutions"

    Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

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    • Constitutional Law

    Constitutional Law, Cases and Materials, 16th, 2024 Supplement

    "The Basis for Election Exceptionalism in Justiciability and Related Doctrines: Constitutional Compensation in Light of Purcell"

    University of Illinois Law Review

    MLaw Repository WWW HEIN

    Constitutional Law, Cases and Materials, 16th, 2023 Supplement

    • Constitutional Law
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    News and Events

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    News

    Caminker Files Brief for State Justices in Elections Case

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