Linda Krieger

Linda Hamilton Krieger grew up in Hawai’i and returned home in 2007, joining the Richardson faculty as a Professor of Law and as Director of the Ulu Lehua Scholars Program, the latter position in which she served until 2017. Before joining the Richardson faculty, Professor Krieger was a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, from which she is now retired. Over the years, she has served as a visiting professor at the Stanford Law School, the Harvard Law School, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.

Between graduating from law school in 1978 and entering law teaching full time in 1992, Professor Krieger practiced as a civil rights lawyer in San Francisco, representing plaintiffs in race, sex, national origin, and disability discrimination class actions and individual cases at the trial and appellate levels, and drafting state and federal legislation in the areas of civil rights, evidence, and civil procedure. Many of her cases established important precedents in the areas of pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment, the rights of workers subject to mass layoffs, and the health insurance-related rights of people with AIDS.

Professor Krieger’s legal scholarship explores how insights from the empirical social sciences can be used to inform civil rights law and policy, judicial decision making, and the lawyer-client relationship. Significant publications include: Problem Solving, Decision Making & Professional Judgment: A Guide for Lawyers and Policy Makers (with P. Brest, Oxford U. Press); When Organizations Rule: Judicial Deference to Institutionalized Employment Structures (with L. Edelman et. al., Am. J. of Sociology); The Content of Our Categories: A Cognitive Bias Approach to Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunity (Stanford L. Rev.); and Backlash Against the ADA: Reinterpreting Disability Rights (U. of Mich. Press).

Professor Krieger’s teaching areas include civil procedure, legislation and statutory interpretation, professional responsibility, and civil rights law and policy.

Degrees

• AB Stanford University 1975
• JD New York University School of Law 1978