Richard L. Hasen is an internationally recognized expert in election law, writing as well in the areas of legislation and statutory interpretation, remedies, and torts. He is co-author of leading casebooks in election law and remedies. Hasen served in 2020 as a CNN Election Law Analyst and as an NBC News/MSNBC Election Law Analyst in 2022. He directs UCLA Law’s Safeguarding Democracy Project.

From 2001-2010, he served (with Dan Lowenstein) as founding co-editor of the quarterly peer-reviewed publication, Election Law Journal. He was elected to The American Law Institute in 2009 and serves as Reporter (with Douglas Laycock) on the ALI’s law reform project: Restatement (Third) of Torts: Remedies. He also is an adviser on the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Concluding Provisions. Hasen was named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by The National Law Journal in 2013, and one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California in 2005 and 2016 by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal.

His op-eds and commentaries have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Politico, and Slate. Hasen also writes the often-quoted Election Law Blog, which the ABA Journal named to its “Blawg 100 Hall of Fame” in 2015. The Green Bag recognized his 2018 book, The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption, for exemplary legal writing, and his 2016 book, Plutocrats United, received a Scribes Book Award Honorable Mention. His 2022 book, Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics—and How to Cure It, was named one of the four best books on disinformation by The New York Times. His new book, A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy, was published by Princeton University Press in February 2024.

Hasen holds a B.A. degree (with highest honors) from UC Berkeley, and a J.D., M.A., and Ph.D. (Political Science) from UCLA. After law school, Hasen clerked for the Hon. David R. Thompson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then worked as a civil appellate lawyer at the Encino firm Horvitz and Levy.

From 1994-1997, Hasen taught at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, and from 1998-2011, he taught at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, where he was named the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law in 2005. From 2011-2022, Hasen was Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine and Co-Director of the Fair Elections and Free Speech Center. He was a visiting professor at UCLA Law twice before joining the faculty in 2022.