Joerg Knipprath

I am a law professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, where I’ve been teaching since 1986. My subjects are Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence, American Legal History, and the occasional business law course. My interests are in the areas of law, philosophy, and religion. Being a typical law professor, I am not shy about commenting on matters outside my expertise, though I try to avoid going more deeply into such matters than my ignorance allows.

I have been in the United States since I was ten, when my family moved here from Germany. Since then I have lived almost entirely in California, which makes me a native of the state compared to most residents. I graduated from Pomona College, attended Harvard Law School for a year, decided to go to Stanford University for graduate school in political science, passed my written Ph.D. exams, realized that there was little money to be made in teaching in that field but liked Stanford, transferred to Stanford Law School.

After law school, I joined Big Law and practiced law first as a business litigator and then in transactions. I questioned the life style, including the billing of 25-hour days. Just kidding on that very last point. Mostly. I practiced with Medium Law, but realized that I wanted to teach. I taught as an adjunct law instructor at several institutions before joining the faculty at California State University, Northridge, in the business law department. While that was a well-respected department, it was riven by factions among the faculty. It was also a state institution and California was going through a budgetary crisis. Hmm, that sounds familiar. I had been teaching as an adjunct at Southwestern Law School, and Dean Leigh Taylor offered me a job. He offered fewer classes. A greater variety of classes. More sophisticated subjects. More dedicated students. A faction-free faculty. Sixty percent more money. He had me at more “dedicated students.” Who am I kidding? I’m a conservative. He had me at “sixty percent more money.” I’ve been at Southwestern ever since.

In 2001, the school began an “Excellence in Teaching” award for a professor voted by the students. I won that award in 2004 and 2009.

I am married and, at latest–and probably final–count, have seven children. My wife is an attorney. My eldest daughter is finishing her medical studies. My eldest son is a law student. Number three is finishing up his CPA requirements and working in Big Accounting. Numbers four and five are in college. Numbers six and seven are in elementary and pre-school, respectively.