Gary Rowe
University of California at Los Angeles School of Law
Professor Rowe teaches American Legal History, Federal Courts, and Civil Procedure at UCLA School of Law. His principal area of scholarly interest lies in American legal history, particularly the history of the Constitution and the early American republic. He graduated summa cum laude in history from Harvard College and was Associate Editorial Chair of The Harvard Crimson. Following college, he was a Henry Fellow at Oxford University and received the Sara Norton Prize for historical writing. He attended law school at Yale, where he was the Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, Professor Rowe worked as an associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C., as a law clerk for Judge William A. Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and a regulatory policy advisor in the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton Administration. He subsequently enrolled in graduate school at Princeton, where he taught English constitutional and American legal history and was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship.
Gary Rowe On Law Preview . . .
Why do you teach for Law Preview?
Teaching is a blast, and the more students I can get excited about my subjects, the happier I am.
Why is Law Preview better than other modes of preparing for law school?
It teaches not only study and case reading skills -- which are vital -- but also provides students with the big picture for each first year subject, around which they can organize the individual doctrines they learn about in class.
Gary Rowe On Law School . . .
What is the most important skill law students lack when they begin law school that Law Preview teaches?
It's a combination of skills: first, reading cases with precision and second, understanding the big picture and organizing the cases read in class around it.
What are your favorite study aids for the subject-matter you teach at Law Preview?
Explanations and Examples: Civil Procedure , by Joesph Glannon.
What is your favorite fiction/non-fiction book for the subject-matter you teach at Law Preview?
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens. The book is ultimately about civil procedure and how, done wrong, it can ruin lives! Everyone should read, at a minimum, the first chapter while taking procedure.
What is your favorite casebook for the subject-matter you teach at Law Preview?
I use and very much like Civil Procedure by Stephen Yeazell. For con law, I like Brest, Levinson, Balkin, Amar, and Siegel's, Processes Of Constitutional Decisionmaking: Cases And Materials, which contains an exceedingly rich historical context for constitutional law.
What's your favorite thing about teaching the law?
Connecting with students and watching the light bulbs go on in their heads. Also, I confess, I love the performance aspects. I'm a ham!
Gary Rowe On Life . . .
What person in the legal profession do you most admire?
Justice Robert Jackson, for the grace with which he wrote. Justice William Brennan, for providing the intellectual and strategic leadership of the Warren Court. Justice Louis Brandeis, for his heart.
What are your 3 favorite songs/tracks on your iPod?
I don't have an iPod.
What are the best/worst things about your job?
Best: Interacting with so many wonderful students each year; having the freedom to think, reflect, and write on topics of interest and importance to me. Worst: Grading.
What's the invention you'd most like to see introduced?
An automatic exam grader.
What is your favorite quote or saying?
"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" -- Percy Bysche Shelly "There are few things not purely evil, of which we can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, this is the last." -- Samuel Johnson
