Who is Dr. John Eastman?

Dr. John C. Eastman is Founding Director of the Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence; Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute; and until January 2021 served as the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law. He is also a founding partner of the Constitutional Counsel Group law firm.

From 1996 to 1997 Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk with the Honorable Justice Clarence Thomas in the United States Supreme Court. After concluding his clerkships, Dr. Eastman took a position with Kirkland & Ellis in Los Angeles until 1999.

Upon leaving Kirkland & Ellis, Dr. Eastman began teaching at Chapman University where he served as dean from 2007 to 2010. He also founded the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence in 1999, and has served as its Director since that time.

Dr. Eastman has served as the chairman of the Federalist Society’s Federalism and Separation of Powers Practice Group and as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage. He is on the Advisory Board for the St. Thomas More Society of Orange County and St. Monica’s Academy. He has been recognized by Chapman University as Professor of the Year (2002) and for Faculty Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activity (2013). Additionally, he received the St. Thomas More Award from Franciscan University (2010) and the J. Reuben Clark Award from the J. Reuben Clark Society of Orange County (2010).

Dr. Eastman is a prolific author, with more than 65 scholarly articles and book chapters in such prestigious journals as the University of Chicago Law Review, the American Journal of Legal History, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, the Georgetown Law Journal, the New York University Journal of Law & Liberty, and the Cato Supreme Court Review. He is co-editor of three Constitutional Law textbooks, and has encyclopedia entries in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Legal History, the Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court, and the Heritage Guide to the Constitution.

Dr. Eastman has been invited several times to address various committees of Congress, on topics including President Obama’s Executive Order on Immigration and the IRS’s felonious disclosure of tax returns.

In the courtroom, Dr. Eastman has represented more than twenty parties before the Supreme Court of the United States. He has also represented amici curiae in over 175 cases before that Court, including Moore v. Harper (2023); New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen (2022) (Second Amendment rights); Trump v. New York (2022) (exclusion of illegal immigrants from the census); American Legion v. American Humanist Ass’n (2019) (protection of the Bladensburg Cross); Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2014) (the contraceptive mandate case); Harris v. Quinn (2014), National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning (2014); National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) (the ObamaCare case); Gonzales v. Carhart (2007) (the partial birth abortion case), and Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000).

Dr. Eastman has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, BBC World News, and PBS. His writings and commentary on the courts and the constitution have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Review, Economist, Atlantic, Slate, National Catholic Register, and ABA Journal, among others.

Dr. Eastman received his B.A. from the University of Dallas, an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Claremont Graduate School, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

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People

Senior Fellow, The Claremont Institute; Founding Director, Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence; Founding Partner, Constitutional Counsel Group; Former Law Professor and Dean, Chapman Univ. School of Law; Former Law Clerk, Justice Clarence Thomas