ELENA KAGAN

Elena Kagan, the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law, has served as Dean of Harvard Law School since 2003. She came to Harvard Law as a visiting professor in 1999 and became Professor of Law in 2001. While on the faculty, Kagan has taught administrative law, constitutional law, civil procedure and a seminar on the law surrounding the presidency. She has also written on a range of First Amendment issues, and is currently writing a casebook on administrative law.

From 1995 to 1999, Kagan served in the White House, first as Associate Counsel to the President (1995-96) and then as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council (1997-99). In those positions she played a key role in the executive branch's formulation, advocacy, and implementation of law and policy in areas ranging from education to crime to public health.

Kagan clerked for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1986 to 1987. The next year she clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U. S. Supreme Court. She then worked as a lawyer in Washington before launching her scholarly career at the University of Chicago Law School.