Zachary D. Clopton has has been appointed dean of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, effective Feb. 1. Clopton is currently the Daniel Hale Williams Professor of Law at Northwestern.
Clopton joined the Pritzker School of Law in 2019. He served as a professor of law and soon became an associate dean for Research and Intellectual Life. He was appointed interim dean last May.
Clopton’s legal research focuses on civil procedure — understanding the rules and policies that shape the judicial system.
Clopton holds degrees from Yale, Harvard and Cambridge, where he studied international relations as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. He clerked for Judge Diane P. Wood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago and as an associate in the national security group at WilmerHale in Washington, D.C. He also served as an associate professor of law at Cornell Law School before joining Northwestern.
