Mark Aaronson

Emeritus Professor of Law

Office: 303-333
Email: aaronson@uclawsf.edu
Phone: (415) 581-8924

Bio

Mark Aaronson joined the UC Law SF faculty in 1992 and was the founding director of its Civil Justice Clinic. Prior to joining the faculty he had an extensive career as a civil rights and anti-poverty lawyer. For 13 years he served as Executive Director of the San Francisco Lawyers’ Committee for Urban Affairs (now known as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area), during which time he argued a federal welfare rights case before the U. S. Supreme Court. He received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. Immediately after law school, he was a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellow with legal services programs in Chicago and Hartford. He later earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. He has written articles on practical judgment in lawyering, civility, legal education, and social welfare policy and a book on representing the poor. He is married to Marjorie Gelb, a now retired attorney, whom he met in law school. They have two daughters, two sons-in-law, and three granddaughters.

What I hope you get from a legal education at UC Law SF is a strong commitment to work for the common good, whether as full-time lawyer for social justice or as pro bono volunteer, and that you leave with a solid foundation in law, various lawyering skills, and critical thinking, so that you are best able to learn from your future experiences in ways that will help you to develop the judgment needed to be an excellent problem-solving lawyer.

Selected Scholarship

Journal Articles

Judgment-Based Lawyering: Working in Coalition, 27 J. Affordable Housing 549 (2019). FULLTEXT SSRN

Representing the Poor: Legal Advocacy and Welfare Reform During Reagan’s Gubernatorial Years, 64 Hastings L.J. 933 (2013) (book-length work published as Special Issue). FULLTEXT SSRN

Teaching Problem-Solving Lawyering: An Exchange of Ideas, 11 Clinical L. Rev. 485 (2005) (with Stefan H. Krieger). FULLTEXT SSRN

Thinking Like a Fox: Four Overlapping Domains of Good Lawyering, 9 Clinical L. Rev. 1 (2002). FULLTEXT SSRN

We Ask You to Consider: Learning About Practical Judgment in Lawyering, 4 Clinical L. Rev. 247 (1998). FULLTEXT SSRN

Scapegoating the Poor: Welfare Reform All over Again and the Undermining of Democratic Citizenship, 7 Hastings Women’s L.J. 213 (1996). FULLTEXT SSRN

Be Just to One Another: Preliminary Thoughts on Civility, Moral Character, and Professionalism, 8 St. Thomas L. Rev. 113 (1995). FULLTEXT SSRN

Placing Pro Bono Publico in the National Legal Services Strategy, 66 A.B.A. J. 851 (1980) (with Charles F. Palmer). FULLTEXT

Criminal Justice in Extremis: Administration of Justice During the April 1968 Chicago Disorder, 36 U. Chi. L. Rev. 455 (1969) (researcher and contributor). FULLTEXT

Chapters In Books

Judgment-Based Lawyering: Structuring Seminar Time in a Non-Litigation Clinic Transforming the Education of Lawyers: The Theory and Practice of Clinical Pedagogy 81 (Carolina Academic Press 2014). CATALOG

Litigation of Federal Statutory Claims under Section 1983, in 1 Civil Rights Litigation and Attorney Fees Annual Handbook 69 (Fredric A. Strom ed., Clark Boardman Co. 1985). CATALOG

Book Reviews

Ideas Matter, 36 U.S.F. L. Rev. 937 (2002) (reviewing John Denvir, Democracy’s Constitution (2001)). SSRN

Dark Night of the Soul, 45 Hastings L.J. 1379 (1994) (reviewing Anthony T. Kronman, The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession (1993)). SSRN

Newspaper & Magazine Articles

Empathy Pains, L.A. Daily J., May 26, 2009, at 6. CATALOG

Commentary: Yielding Leadership to Dollars, The Recorder, Dec. 10, 1993, at 8. CATALOG

From San Jose to the Supreme Court, Cal. Law., Mar., 1991, at 98 (reviewing Melvin I. Urofsky, A Conflict of Rights: The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action (1991)).

Environmental Advocacy Commemorated, The Recorder, Nov. 1, 1990, at 7 (reviewing Carr Clifton & Tom Turner, Wild by Law: The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and the Places it Has Saved (1990)). CATALOG

Commentary: Examining Divided Powers, The Recorder, Feb. 25, 1988, at 4. CATALOG

Dissertations & Theses

Legal Advocacy and Welfare Reform: Continuity and Change in Public Relief (1975) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley) (on file with Gardner Library, University of California, Berkeley).