Michael W. McCann

Michael W. McCann received his doctoral degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1983. He was chair of the Political Science Department and Adjunct Professor in the Law School at the University of Washington, where he was the founding director of both the interdisciplinary Comparative Law and Society Studies (CLASS) Center and the undergraduate Law, Societies, and Justice program. He is currently is Gordon Hirabayashi Professor for the Advancement of Citizenship there. McCann has written several books about law, including Taking Reform Seriously: Perspectives on Public Interest Liberalism (Cornell, 1986), Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization (Chicago, 1994), and Distorting the Law: Politics, Media, and the Litigation Crisis (Chicago, 2004). He has published over forty essays in Law & Society Review, Law and Social Inquiry, and other social science journals and law reviews as well as in edited books on numerous subjects. Among his present research projects is a study of the cultural backlash against egalitarian rights claiming and public interest litigation for progressive health-related causes in the U.S., and its implications for contemporary politics at local, national, and international levels.