Richard Pildes

Who is Richard Pildes?

Richard H. Pildes is a law professor at the New York University School of Law and a leading expert on election law. He is one of the nation's leading scholars of public law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy.

The son of two Chicago-area physicians, Pildes received his A.B., summa cum laude, in physical chemistry from Princeton University in 1979, and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1983. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court, after which he practiced law in Boston. He began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, where he was assistant and then full professor of law from 1988 until 1999, when he joined the NYU School of Law faculty. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Harvard Law School, and the University of Texas Law School.

In the area of democracy, Pildes, along with the co-authors of his widely used casebook, The Law of Democracy, has helped to create a new field of study in law schools.