James E. Pfander

Much of Pfander’s recent scholarship explores the role of courts in securing government accountability.  In The Common Law Origins of Ex parte Young, 72 Stan. L. Rev. 1269 (2020), Pfander and Wentzel trace the rise of the suit for injunctive relief to common law modes of enforcing official compliance with law.  In The Myth of Personal Liability:  Who Pays When Bivens Claims Succeed?, 72 Stan. L. Rev. 561 (2020), Pfander joined with Schwartz and Reinert to question the Supreme Court’s assumption that government officials face personal liability for damages awarded in constitutional tort litigation.  More generally, Dicey’s Nightmare:  An Essay on the Rule of Law, 107 Cal. L. Rev. 737 (2019), shows that nineteenth century courts erected far fewer obstacles to suits against federal government officers than their twenty-first century counterparts. In Constitutional Torts and the War on Terror (Oxford U. Press 2017), Pfander documents and evaluates the failure of the federal courts to address the merits of the claims of individuals who were subjected to extraordinary rendition, military detention, and torture during the Bush Administration’s war on terror. Other books include Civil Procedure: A Modern Approach (7th ed. 2018) (with Marcus, Redish & Sherman); Federal Courts: Cases, Comments, and Questions (8th ed. 2018) (with Redish & Sherry), Principles of Federal Jurisdiction (4^th ed. 2021).

With an interest in the comparative effectiveness of judicial oversight in other systems, Pfander has taught and lectured in such countries as the Czech Republic, Israel, Morocco, Romania, and the United Kingdom.  A member of the American Law Institute, Pfander recently concluded his work as reporter/consultant to the Federal-State Jurisdiction Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He has served as chair of both the federal courts and civil procedure sections of the Association of American Law Schools.