Kevin R. Johnson

Kevin R. Johnson

Kevin R. Johnson is Dean of the School of Law, Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law, and Professor of Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Davis. He joined the UC Davis law faculty in 1989 and was named Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 1998. Johnson became Dean in 2008. His areas of specialty include immigration law, civil procedure, complex litigation, Latinos and Latinas and the law, and Critical Race Theory.
Johnson has published extensively on immigration law and civil rights. Published in 1999, his book How Did You Get to Be Mexican? A White/Brown Man's Search for Identity was nominated for the 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. His book Immigration Law and the US-Mexico Border (2011) received the Latino Literacy Now’s International Latino Book Award for Best Reference Book. Johnson blogs at ImmigrationProf and is a regular contributor for SCOTUSblog.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, Johnson earned an A.B. in economics from UC Berkeley, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked at the firm of Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe. Johnson has served on the board of directors of Legal Services of Northern California since 1996 and currently is President of the board. From 2006-11, he served on the board of directors of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Johnson is the recipient of awards and honors including the Association of American Law Schools Minority Groups Section Clyde Ferguson Award, the Hispanic National Bar Association Law Professor of the Year award, the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar of the Year award, the Central American Resource Center Romero Vive Award, and the Centro Legal de la Raza Outstanding Achievements in the Law Award. In 2003, he was elected to the American Law Institute.

Columns by Kevin R. Johnson

Permalink to How Prospective Law Students Can Make Better Use of the U.S. News Law School Rankings That Are About to Be Released

How Prospective Law Students Can Make Better Use of the U.S. News Law School Rankings That Are About to Be Released

27 Feb 2015

Vikram David Amar and Kevin R. Johnson

U.C. Davis law professor Vikram David Amar and guest columnist and dean of UC Davis law school Kevin R. Johnson offer five ways in which law students might better use the U.S. News law school rankings when they are released.