Biography
Bibliography| Courses
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Adam Winkler
Professor of Law
B.S.F.S Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1990
J.D. New York University, 1993
M.A. Political Science, 1998
UCLA Faculty since 2002
winkler@law.ucla.edu |
Adam Winkler is a specialist in American constitutional law. His wide-ranging scholarship has touched upon a diverse array of topics such as the right to bear arms, the right to vote, freedom of speech, affirmative action, judicial independence, constitutional interpretation, corporate social responsibility, international economic sanctions, and campaign finance law. His work on the right to bear arms was cited extensively in the briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Second Amendment case, District of Columbia v. Heller, and he was quoted in Justice Stephen Breyer’s opinion. His commentary has been featured on CNN, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, New Republic, Bloomberg News, The Los Angeles Business Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Arizona Chronicle, The New York Daily News, The Tavis Smiley Show, and elsewhere. He blogs for The Huffington Post.
Along with Professor Ken Karst of the law school and the late Pulitzer Prize-winning legal historian Leonard Levy, Adam edited the six-volume Encyclopedia of the American Constitution (2nd edition). He is currently writing a book on the history of gun rights and gun control for W.W. Norton, tentatively titled One Nation Under Guns: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America and slated for publication in 2010.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Adam went to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University intending to join the CIA. But after graduating in 1990 he took the more mundane path of going to law school. He earned a law degree from New York University in 1993 and moved back to Los Angeles to practice law with noted criminal defense lawyer, Howard Weitzman, at Katten Muchin Zavis & Weitzman. In Adam’s first case out of law school, he worked with Weitzman representing the late Michael Jackson in a highly publicized child-molestation case. Adam was also part of the defense team that initially represented O.J. Simpson in the football player’s infamous murder trial. This was more than enough to convince Adam to return to academia.
Adam clerked on the United States Court of Appeals and then received a master’s degree in political science from UCLA under the mentorship of Professor Karen Orren. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty in 2002, he was the John M. Olin Fellow at the University of Southern California Law School’s Center in Law, Economics, and Organization (2001-02).
Adam teaches Constitutional Law I, Professional Responsibility, and a seminar on Constitutional Theory.
