Professor Donald Earl Childress III

Donald Earl Childress is the Dean of Faculty and Professor of Law at Pepperdine School of Law. Prior to joining the law faculty in 2008, Professor Childress was associated with the international law firm Jones Day in Washington, D.C., as a member of their Issues and Appeals practice, where he focused on Supreme Court litigation, general appellate litigation, and significant motions practice in trial litigation. While in private practice, his appellate representations included preparation of writs of certiorari, merits briefs, and amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Childress has briefed and argued appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and has briefed matters in numerous other trial and appellate courts in the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and D.C. Circuits, as well as in various state courts. He has significant private practice experience in transnational litigation/arbitration, complex civil procedure, conflict of laws, constitutional law, immigration law, international dispute resolution, federal Indian law, and national security law, including cases related to the war on terror. He maintains an active pro bono practice. During his time in Washington, D.C., Professor Childress co-taught a Supreme Court Litigation course at the Georgetown University Law Center and served as a "Justice" in the Georgetown University Law Center Supreme Court Institute. Professor Childress is admitted to practice in Virginia, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Professor Childress clerked for the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. While at Duke Law School, he served as editor-in-chief of the Duke Law Journal (Volume 53) and received the faculty award for outstanding achievement in international, transnational, and comparative law. While at Oxford Brookes University, he served as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in the United Kingdom, where his research focused, in part, on European constitutionalism and European Union law.

Professor Childress's primary research interests are international civil litigation and arbitration, private international law, comparative law, and ethics. His scholarship has appeared in the Duke Law Journal, the U.C. Davis Law Review, the Northwestern Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the Virginia Journal of International Law, the William and Mary Law Review and the North Carolina Law Review. He has also published an edited volume with Cambridge University Press entitled "The Role of Ethics in International Law." He is working extensively on the role that international civil litigation and arbitration plays in an increasingly global world. He is the American co-editor of the private international law blog ConflictOfLaws.net.

Professor Childress teaches Civil Procedure, International Litigation, Comparative Law, Conflict of Laws, and Ethical Lawyering.