Mark D. West


Mark D. West is a U.S. legal scholar, Nippon Life Professor of Law and Dean of the University of Michigan Law School. In January 2013, he was named as the 17th Dean of Michigan Law and succeeded Evan H. Caminker. West began his term on September 1, 2013.
He is widely published on the subject of Japanese law and the Japanese legal system, and is regarded as a leading American authority in these areas. From 2003 to 2008, West served as director of the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies. West's five-year tenure as director was the longest of any director since the Center's founding in 1947. He has been the associate dean for academic affairs at Michigan Law since 2008.

Publications

West is the author or co-author of five books:
He has published articles in English and Japanese in the Journal of Japanese Studies, Hōritsu Jihō, American Journal of Comparative Law, Law and Society Review, Journal of Comparative Economics, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review among others. He is a frequent lecturer at universities in the United States and Japan, and an editor of the Journal of Japanese Law.

Education

West earned his B.A., magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Rhodes College and his J.D. with multiple honors from Columbia Law School, where he was notes and comments editor for the Columbia Law Review.
He clerked for the Hon. Eugene Nickerson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
West has been a Fulbright Research Scholar, an Abe Fellow, and a fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.