Professor and Dean Emeritus Robert Klonoff, one of Lewis & Clark Law’s most cited and renowned faculty members, has been named the Henry J. Casey Chair. The endowed chair was established in 1985 by Henry J. Casey and his sister Marguerite to honor the memories of their brothers, James and George. The Chair is awarded to a faculty member who has “the highest ethical business standards,” and a professor who shares their “expertise to the study of law, business, and integrity.”
Professor Klonoff, a graduate of Yale Law School, served as Dean of the Law School from 2007-2014. His areas of expertise include complex civil litigation, civil procedure, federal courts, appellate litigation, and criminal procedure. In 2020 he received the Leo Levinson Award for Excellence in Teaching.
His commitment to teaching and legal education is matched by his ongoing scholarship and extensive public service. He has worked with other accomplished scholars and has involved numerous Lewis & Clark law students in his academic and expert work. As he proudly noted, “I have been fortunate to have had numerous (and extremely talented) Lewis & Clark Law research assistants, who have provided invaluable assistance on a host of projects.”
Professor Klonoff has won many awards. For instance, in 2025, Professor Klonoff received the Oregon State Bar Award of Merit, its highest honor. He has also received multiple special achievement awards from the U.S. Department of Justice, and an award from the District of Columbia Bar for pro bono service. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and a member of the ALI Council. He also chairs the ALI Development committee.
“Professor and Dean Emeritus Robert Klonoff has made such extraordinary and lasting contributions to Lewis & Clark Law School, our students, and the legal profession,” remarked Dean Alicia Ouellette in making the appointment. “His career exemplifies academic leadership, scholarly distinction, and public service. We are grateful for his leadership, collegiality, and continued dedication to Lewis & Clark.”
Litigation experience
Professor Klonoff has vast litigation experience, which complements his academic focus on complex litigation. He has had eight oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, and numerous arguments before other appellate courts. He also has substantial jury trial experience. He has served as counsel or an expert witness in more than 100 class action cases, including high profile cases such as Deepwater Horizon, NFL Concussion, JUUL e-cigarette, Social Media litigation, Forever Chemicals litigation, NCAA antitrust, and Equifax data breach. He has also served as the academic member of the Federal Civil Rules Advisory Committee from 2011-2017 (the maximum term), a prestigious appointment he received from Chief Justice John Roberts. He has lectured on aggregate litigation topics throughout the world and is a frequent speaker at various conferences attended heavily by federal judges.
Recent academic publications
Over the past several months Prof. Klonoff has brought several long-running scholarship projects to fruition.
The topic of “Federal Multidistrict Litigation” (FML) remains one of Prof. Klonoff’s primary areas of academic interest. While nearly half of the federal civil docket involves multidistrict litigation, his West Nutshell on Federal MDL (2020) was the first-ever academic text on the topic. A second and updated edition came out in July 2026.
Prof. Klonoff notes that he has since recruited a pair of prominent MDL scholars from Berkeley and Cornell, with whom he has published Klonoff, Bradt, and Lahav’s Federal Multidistrict Litigation (West Hornbook Series), which also came out in July 2026.
In 2022, Prof. Klonoff was appointed co-author of the multivolume treatise, Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, and has served since that time as the sole author responsible for Volumes 7A, 7AA and 7B, the three volumes focusing on federal class actions. He has authored extensive updates to all three volumes, in both online and print form (designated as Wright, Miller, Kane & Klonoff).
In July 2026, West released a seventh edition of Klonoff’s Class Actions and Other Multi-Party Litigation in a Nutshell. He has also completely revamped his complex litigation casebook, recruiting three co-authors including a prominent class action attorney and professors from Georgetown and University of Texas: Complex Litigation: Class Actions, Multidistrict Litigation and Other Aggregate Dispute Resolution, 5th Edition (West), to be released in November 2026.
He is the author of the West casebook, Introduction to the Study of U.S. Law, which is used by international LLM students in survey courses. The third edition of that casebook was published in early 2026. He is also a co-author of the trial advocacy text, Winning Jury Trials: Trial Tactics and Sponsorship Strategies, published by the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, and now in its third edition.
