David S. Clark

Maynard and Bertha Wilson Professor of Law; Director of the Certificate Program in International and Comparative Law

• J.S.M. Stanford University
• J.D. Stanford University
• A.B. Stanford University

Curriculum Vitae

dsclark@willamette.edu

Professor Clark joined the Willamette faculty in January 2002 as the first incumbent of the Maynard and Bertha Wilson Endowed Professorship. Making good use of his fluency in several languages, Clark has taught in Europe, Latin America and Asia. He is a frequent scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg and has held the Alexander von Humboldt and Max Planck Society research fellowships. Clark previously taught at the universities of Colorado, Houston, Louisiana State and Tulsa. He was also the Inns of Court Fellow at Inner Temple in London (2000), the Fulbright Chair in Comparative Law at Trento University (1999), the Wing Tat Lee Chair in International and Comparative Law at Loyola University Chicago (1996), and the Dan Hopson Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Southern Illinois University (1987).

Clark has published 11 books and more than 50 articles on comparative law, procedure, courts, and law and society, which track his teaching areas. His most recent books are the Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives (three volumes, editor 2007), The Organization of Lawyers and Judges (published separately in 2003 as part of the International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law), Kluwer’s second edition of Introduction to the Law of the United States (co-editor 2002), used widely in LL.M. programs in Europe and America, and the 300-entry Oxford Companion to American Law (co-editor 2002). He is now working on a new edition to the popular comparative law casebook, The Civil Law Tradition: Europe, Latin America, and East Asia.

Since 1978 Clark has been active in the American Society of Comparative Law, the preeminent organization in its field. He is currently honorary president and served as its treasurer from 1989 to 1995, vice president from 1998 to 2002, president from 2002 to 2006, and its delegate since 1995 to the American Council of Learned Societies (on whose board of directors he served from 1997 to 1999). In addition, Professor Clark is active in national legal education organizations. He was chairperson of the Association of American Law Schools' Section on Comparative Law from 1986 to 1987 and is now a member of its Committee on Faculty Recruitment Practices. He also is chairperson of the Law School Admission Council’s Grants Subcommittee and serves on its Test Development and Research Committee.

Clark teaches Civil Procedure, Comparative Law, European Union Law, and Dispute Resolution. He also supervises Willamette’s semester abroad program for study at the Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany, and its Certificate Program in International and Comparative Law. Clark is a member of the California Bar.

The Maynard and Bertha Wilson Endowed Professorship was made possible by a generous bequest by Maynard Wilson, a 1940 graduate of the College of Law, and his wife Bertha of Cottage Grove, Oregon.