Professor Anuj C. Desai

Anuj C. Desai is the Volkman-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin, where he teaches in both the Law School and the iSchool (The Information School), offering classes in Cyberlaw, First Amendment, Intellectual Freedom, Statutory Interpretation, and Legislation and Regulation.

Professor Desai has served as a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China; National Tsing Hua University Institute of Law for Science and Technology in Hsinchu, Taiwan; and National Taiwan University College of Law in Taipei, Taiwan.  He is also co-director of the U.S.-German Summer Law School at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.

In addition, he has served as an administrative appellate judge on the Administrative Review Board of the United States Department of Labor; as a Senate-confirmed member of the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, an independent, quasi-judicial agency of the United States Department of Justice that adjudicates claims of U.S. nationals against foreign governments; as a member of a National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine's panel studying options for the future management of dual-use research of concern; and as counsel to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the General Counsel's Office of the Office of Management and Budget, part of the Executive Office of the President. 

Prior to entering academia, Professor Desai practiced law with the Seattle, Washington firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, where his practice focused primarily on First Amendment, defamation, newsgathering, copyright and trademark litigation. Before his time in private practice, he served as a legal assistant to the American judges at the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague and clerked for the late Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge David S. Tatel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He also worked briefly in the Legal Adviser's Office at the U.S. State Department and also at the Legal Resources Centre in Grahamstown, South Africa.  

Professor Desai is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.  He received his A.B. in Mathematics from Harvard University (where he was awarded a Henry Russell Shaw Fellowship), a Master's in International Affairs from Columbia University and a J.D. from the University of California-Berkeley (Berkeley Law), where he was Editor-in-Chief of the California Law Review.