Professor Joanna C. Schwartz

Joanna C. Schwartz is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and the Faculty Director of the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. She teaches Civil Procedure and a variety of courses on police accountability and public interest lawyering. She received UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2015, and served as Vice Dean for Faculty Development from 2017-2019.

Professor Schwartz is one of the country's leading experts on police misconduct litigation and the author of Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable (2023). Her recent scholarship—published in the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Columbia Law Review, New York University Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, UCLA Law Review, and elsewhere—includes articles empirically examining the justifications for qualified immunity doctrine; the financial impact of settlements and judgments on federal, state, and local law enforcement officers and agency budgets; and regional variation in civil rights protections across the country. She has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Atlantic, The Boston Review, and Politico, and has appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air, CBS Sunday Morning, PBS NewsHour, ABC News, CNN, MSNBC, and elsewhere. Professor Schwartz additionally studies the dynamics of modern civil litigation and is the co-author, with Stephen Yeazell and Maureen Carroll, of a leading casebook, Civil Procedure (11th Edition).

Professor Schwartz is a graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School. After law school, Professor Schwartz clerked for Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York and Judge Harry Pregerson of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She was then associated with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, in New York City, where she specialized in police misconduct, prisoners' rights, and First Amendment litigation.

You can find more information about Professor Schwartz’s research at joannaschwartz.net.