Life Member
The Hon. David F. Levi
Durham, NC
Duke University School of Law
Harvard University
Stanford Law School
David F. Levi is the Levi Family Professor of Law and Judicial Studies and director emeritus of the Bolch Judicial Institute. He was the James B. Duke and Benjamin N. Duke Dean of the School of Law from 2007-2018. Following his tenure as dean, Levi served as the founding director of the Bolch Judicial Institute from 2018 until 2022. He also served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States in 2021.
In 2023, he was appointed to the Data Protection Review Court (DPRC). The DPRC independently reviews determinations made by the Civil Liberties Protection Officer of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to qualifying complaints sent by individuals through appropriate public authorities that allege certain violations of United States law in the conduct of United States signals intelligence activities.
Before becoming the 14th Dean of Duke School of Law in 2007, Levi was the Chief Judge for the Eastern District of California with chambers in Sacramento. Earlier in his career, he was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Levi was then nominated in 1990 to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California by President George H.W. Bush.
After law school, he clerked with Judge Ben C. Duniway of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then with Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States.
In 2007, Levi was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 2010 to 2014, he served on the Equal Justice Works board of directors. In 2014, he was appointed chair of the ABA’s Standing Committee on the American Judicial System, and in 2015, he was named co-chair of the North Carolina Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice. He served as a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States in 2021.
Levi was elected to The American Law Institute in March 1991, serving as an Adviser on the Federal Judicial Code Revision, Principles of the Law, Aggregate Litigation, and Principles of the Law, Student Sexual Misconduct: Procedural Frameworks for Colleges and Universities projects. He was elected to the Council in October 2005 and became ALI's 10th President in May 2017.
