Professor of Law
E-mail: acdesai@wisc.edu
Telephone: (608)263-7605
Office: Room 8102, Law School
Education:
J.D., Univ. of California-Berkeley (Boalt Hall)
Master's in International Affairs, Columbia U.
A.B. (Mathematics), Harvard University
Teaching Areas:
Constitutional Law: First Amendment
Copyright
Cyberlaw
Legislation
Recently Taught Courses
746 Legislation
899 Wisconsin Law Review
904 SP Con Law: 1st Amendment
Biography
Anuj C. Desai is a Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin, where he teaches in both the
law school and the School of Library and
Information Studies, offering classes in Copyright, First Amendment,
Legislation, Constitutional Law, and Cyberlaw. He currently serves as a part-time Commissioner of the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, an independent, quasi-judicial agency of the United States Department of Justice that adjudicates claims of U.S. nationals against
foreign governments.
Professor Desai writes at the
intersection of constitutional law and communications and information policy.
His publications have appeared in the Stanford Law Review, Hastings
Law Journal, Federal Communications Law Journal, and University
of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. His current research focuses
on understanding the ways in which constitutional jurisprudence is shaped by
different institutional contexts, with a focus on various types of information
and communications networks. His papers are available for download on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Desai has served as a visiting professor at the
Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and
American Studies in Nanjing, China; National Tsing Hua
University in Hsinchu, Taiwan; and National Taiwan University in Taipei,
Taiwan.
Prior to entering academia, Professor Desai practiced law with the Seattle, Washington firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, where his practice focused primarily on First Amendment, defamation, newsgathering, copyright and trademark litigation. Before his time in private practice, he served as a legal assistant to the American judges at the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague and clerked for Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge David S. Tatel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He also worked briefly in the Legal Adviser's Office at the U.S. State Department and also at the Legal Resources Centre in Grahamstown, South Africa.
Professor Desai received his A.B. in
Mathematics from Harvard University (where
he was awarded a Henry Russell Shaw Fellowship), a Master's in International
Affairs from Columbia University and a
J.D. from the University of
California-Berkeley (Boalt Hall),
where he was Editor-in-Chief of the California Law Review.
