# Samuel Issacharoff

Samuel Issacharoff (born 1954) is an American legal scholar. His scholarly work focuses on constitutional law, voting rights and civil procedure. He is the Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law.

## Early life

Issacharoff's mother was born in Argentina to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe (Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian). His father was born in Uruguay, and was of Bukharian Jewish descent from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Both his parents were secular Jews, and Issacharoff has described himself as an atheist.

## Education

Issacharoff earned his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1983, where he also served as an editor for the Yale Law Journal. He completed his B.A. with a major in History at the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1975.

## Career

Issacharoff graduated from Binghamton University in 1975 and Yale Law School in 1983. Issacharoff was born in Argentina in Buenos Aires. He is currently the Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law. He served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School for the Fall 2008 semester. Prior to joining NYU Law's faculty, he taught at Columbia Law School and The University of Texas School of Law.
In 2017, Issacharof was interviewed by Suraj Patel for Talks on Law on the topic of gerrymandering.

## Professional Service

Issacharoff serves on the Council of the American Law Institute, having previously been the lead Reporter for the ALI’s Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation. In addition to his academic work, Issacharoff has argued dozens of cases in the federal courts of appeals, including in the U.S. Supreme Court.

## Publications

* The Supreme Court, 2012 Term — Comment: Beyond the Discrimination Model on Voting, 127 Harv. L. Rev. 95 (2013).
* The Supreme Court, 2009 Term — Comment: On Political Corruption, 124 Harv. L. Rev. 118 (2010).
* Fragile Democracies, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 1405 (2007).
* Party Funding and Campaign Financing in International Perspective with Keith Ewing (eds.) (2006) ISBN 1-84113-570-4
* Civil Procedure (2005) ISBN 1-58778-034-8 (pbk. : alk. paper).
* The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process with Pamela S. Karlan, Richard H. Pildes. (1998) ISBN 1-56662-462-2 (alk. paper).
* The State of Voting Rights Law (1993).
* When Elections Go Bad: The Law of Democracy and the Presidential Election of 2000 with Pamela S. Karlan, Richard H. Pildes. Rev. ed. (2001) ISBN 1-58778-233-2 (alk. paper)

## Books

* Democracy unmoored: populism and the corruption of popular sovereignty,
* (Oxford University Press, 2023).
* Fragile democracies: contested power in the era of constitutional courts, (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2015).
* Civil procedure (Foundation Press, 5th edition, 2022).
* The law of democracy: legal structure of the political process (with Pamela Karlan, Richard Pildes, Nathaniel Persily and Franita Tolson) (Foundation Press, 6th. edition, 2022).
* Party funding and campaign financing in international perspective (with K.D. Ewing) (Hart Press, Oxford, 2006).

## Personal life

His wife, Cynthia Estlund, is a labor and employment-law professor, also at New York University School of Law.