Dr. John C. Eastman is a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute and Founding Director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. He previously served as the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law, and as the school’s Dean from 2007 to 2010.

Dr. Eastman received his B.A. from the University of Dallas, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Claremont Graduate School. He completed his studies at the University of Chicago Law School, earning his J.D. in 1995 and immediately took a position clerking for Judge Michael Luttig in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. From 1996 to 1997 he served as a law clerk with the Honorable Justice Clarence Thomas in the United States Supreme Court. After concluding his clerkships, Dr. Eastman took a position with Kirkland & Ellis in Los Angeles until 1999.

Upon leaving Kirkland & Ellis, Dr. Eastman took up his teaching post at Chapman University. He also founded the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence in 1999, and has served as its Director since that time.

Dr. Eastman is a member of the board of the Claremont Institute and the Public Interest Legal Foundation. He has previously served as the chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage and as Chairman of the Federalist Society’s Federalism & Separation of Powers practice group. He is on the Advisory Board for the St. Thomas More Society of Orange County and St. Monica’s Academy. He was recognized by Chapman University as Professor of the Year (2002) and for Faculty Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activity (2013). Additionally, he received the St. Thomas More Award from Franciscan University (2010) and the J. Reuben Clark Award from the J. Reuben Clark Society of Orange County (2010).

Dr. Eastman is a prolific author, and co-author of a constitutional law textbook, The American Constitutional Order:  History, Cases, and Philosophy, 4th Edition (LexisNexis, 2014). A selection of his scholarly publications include “Live by the Executive Pen, Die by the Executive Pen?”, in the Drake Law Review (2017);

“The President’s Pen and the Bureaucrat’s Fiefdom,” in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (2017); “No Free Lunch, But Dinner and a Movie (and Contraceptives for Dessert)?” in the New York University Journal of Law & Liberty (2016); “Cheating Marriage: A Tragedy in Three Acts,” in the Ave Maria Law Review (Summer 2015); “From Plyler to Arizona: Have the Courts Forgotten about Corfield v. Coryell?”  in the University of Chicago Law Review (2013); “The Moral Conditions of Liberty” in Freedom and the Rule of Law (2009); and “Judicial Review of Unenumerated Rights: Does Marbury’s Holding Apply in a Post-Warren Court World?”  in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (2005).

Dr. Eastman has been invited several times to address various committees of Congress, on topics including the Fourteenth Amendment’s limited grant of birthright citizenship, President Obama’s Executive Order on Immigration, and the IRS’s felonious disclosure of tax returns.

In the courtroom, Dr. Eastman has represented twenty parties before the Supreme Court of the United States, including former President Donald Trump. He has also represented amici curiae (friends of the Court) in over 200 cases before the Supreme Court in cases such as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2014), Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Burwell (2014), Harris v. Quinn (2014), National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning (2014), National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012), Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), and Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000).

Dr. Eastman has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, BBC World News, and PBS. His writings and commentary on the courts and the constitution have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Review, the Economist, the Atlantic, Slate, the National Catholic Register, and the ABA Journal.