Mary Kay Kane

Emerita Dean and Chancellor, and Distinguished Professor of Law | UC Hastings College of the Law

San Francisco, CA, UNITED STATES

Contacts: kanem@uchastings.edu / 415-565-4777 / Office M206-198

Biography

Professor Mary Kay Kane was born and raised in Detroit. She attended the University of Michigan where she received a B.A. degree in English and a J.D. in law in 1971. Upon graduation from law school, she became co-director of a national science foundation project on privacy and social science research data, spending one year at the University of Michigan and two years at Harvard Law School working on that project.

She began teaching in 1974 at the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School and came to Hastings in 1977. She served as Associate Academic Dean from 1980-82, as Acting Academic Dean during the 1987-88 academic year, as Academic Dean from 1990-93, and as Dean from 1993-2006, and as Chancellor from 2000-2006. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Austin, and Boalt Hall.

Professor Kane's major area of interest is civil procedure. She has written several articles and books in that field, including a Nutshell on Civil Procedure, the seventh edition of which was published in 2012. She also co-authored a Hornbook on Civil Procedure, whose fifth edition was published in 2015, a Hornbook on the Law of Federal Courts, whose seventh edition was published in 2011, as well as the third and fourth editions of fourteen volumes of the national treatise, Federal Practice and Procedure. She also served as the Co-Reporter for the American Law Institute's Complex Litigation Project, developing proposals for handling multiparty, multiforum disputes in the federal and state courts.

In 2001, Professor Kane served as the President of the Association of American Law Schools. She currently is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute. She also served as a member of the Standing Committee on Practice and Procedure of the United States Judicial Conference from 2000-2006, and as a member of the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar from 2004-2010.

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Areas of Expertise (4)

Civil Procedure

Federal and State Courts

Litigation

Mediation

Education (2)

University of Michigan: J.D., Law

University of Michigan: B.A., English

Affiliations (2)

American Law Institute : Council Member
International Association of Law Schools : Board of Governors

Links (1)

Publications

Media Appearances (1)

One step closer to the Uniform Bar Exam: The portable UBE

Examiner.com online

2010-09-16

Finally, the National Conference of Bar Examiners has a special committee called, well, the Special Committee on the Uniform Bar Exam. If you happen to be wondering about representation on that committee in California, there is one representative: Mary Kay Kane, Professor and Dean Emeritus, University of California Hastings College of the Law. LA Law Schools Examiner will be following this issue, so stay tuned for more and feel free to discuss in the comments section below...

Selected Articles (5)

The Exercise of Jurisdiction Over and Enforcement of Judgements Against Alien Defendants

Hastings Law Journal

1988-01-01

It is trite but true to observe that disputes between United States nationals and people from other lands have been increasing steadily and doubtless will continue to do so. More and more, our commercial fates are intertwined. Accordingly, the phenomenon of litigation in the courts of the United States against people, both natural and corporate, from other countries will be more common in the future than it has been in the past...

Of Carrots and Sticks: Evaluating the Role of the Class Action Lawyer

Texas Law Review

1987-01-01

Since the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Federal Rules) in 1938, federal courts have encouraged the liberal joinder of claims and parties so that one complete adjudication results. The 1966 amendments to the Federal Rules, which changed all the joinder rules, strengthened this judicial philosophy...

Suing Foreign Sovereigns: A Procedural Compass

Stanford Law Review

1982-01-01

Since the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act is intended to provide a comprehensive scheme for actions against foreign sovereigns, it deals with both substantive and procedural issues pertinent to those suits. Substantively, the statute defines what entities may be treated as foreign states....

Civil Jury Trial: The Case for Reasoned Iconoclasm

Hsatings Law Journal

1976-01-01

The seventh amendment to the United States Constitution has ensured that the jury trial will be a permanent part of American civil litigation by providing: "In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall otherwise by re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law"...

Standing, Mootness, and Federal Rule 23 - Balancing Perspectives

Buffalo Law Review

1976-01-01

The struggle between the maintenance of these traditional rules [governing standing to sue] and the growth of class and public-interest actions reflects perhaps the most heated ideological struggle of our century - between solitary individualism and laissez-faire, on the one hand, and a social conception of the law, the economy, and the state's role, on the other.