Michael McCann
is Gordon Hirabayashi Professor for the
Advancement of Citizenship at the University of Washington. At UW, he: founded
and directed for ten years the Comparative Law and Society Studies (CLASS)
Center and the Law, Societies, and Justice program; directed the LSJ Rome
Program in Comparative Law; served as chair of the Political Science
Department; and is an Adjunct in the Law School. His books include Rights
at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization
(Chicago, 1994) and, with Bill Haltom, Distorting the Law: Politics,
Media, and the Litigation Crisis (Chicago 2004); each book won both the
LSA Book (Jacob) Prize and the C. Herman Pritchett Award in the APSA Law &
Courts section along with other awards. Among his edited books are Law and
Social Movements (Ashgate, 2006) and, with David Engel, Fault Lines:
Tort Law as Cultural Practice (Stanford, 2009). McCann has published
essays in Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, and other
journals and law reviews as well as in edited books. He is presently working
on a book titled A Union by Law: Filipino Cannery Workers and the
Transpacific Struggle for Equal Rights, 1921-1991. A member of the Law &
Society Association since 1984, McCann has served in many capacities,
including: on the Board of Trustees (1996-98); as chair (2006) and member
(1995) of the Program Committee; on the Education and Outreach Committee
(1996-99); on the Strategic Priorities Review Committee (1996-8); as chair
(2001) and member (2004) of the Kalven Award committee; as co-chair of the
Development Committee (2002-04); as faculty participant in a Summer Institute
(1993); several Graduate Student Workshops (1991, 2004), and an Early Career
Workshop (2009); and in various years on the editorial advisory board of
Law & Society Review. He also has played leadership roles in the
Consortium of Undergraduate Law & Justice Programs, the West Coast Consortium
of Law & Society Scholars, and the Law and Courts section of APSA. A
university-wide Distinguished Teaching Award winner, McCann has supervised
dissertations for over fifteen faculty members and many current doctoral
students who are members of LSA. He was a Visiting Fellow with the Japanese
Society for the Promotion of Science in1998 and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2007-8.
One of his favorite activities is playing guitar in the Seattle blues/jazz
band bluesalt. Michael is honored to be a candidate for President of
the Law and Society Association, which he considers his intellectual home.