Prof. Jonathan D. Varat, Director
Jonathan Varat is a professor of law emeritus and dean emeritus of the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. At UCLA, Mr. Varat has taught Constitutional Law I & II, Federal Courts, and Separation of Powers. He was awarded the School of Law’s Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1990. He served twice as associate dean of the law school and as its dean from 1998 to 2003. Mr. Varat is co-author of a major constitutional law casebook, Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials (with Vikram Amar, 2017), as well as a number of law review articles, and is an expert on federal courts. His scholarship focuses particularly on constitutional federalism and freedom of speech. From 2016 to 2019, the chancellor recalled him to serve as chief liaison between UCLA and the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Administration. Mr. Varat spent more than two years in the U.S. Army between his second and third years of law school, including one year as an artillery officer in Vietnam. After completing his law studies, he clerked successively for Judge Walter Mansfield of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York and Justice Byron White of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. He then practiced as a litigator for two years with O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles before joining the law faculty. Before becoming a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Civic Education, of which he is vice president, he was an active participant, teacher, and adviser in a number of the Center’s programs and activities over a few decades. Mr. Varat is also Board Chair of the Los Angeles Waterkeeper.
