Faculty Profile

David Fagundes

Associate Professor of Law

A.B., summa cum laude, History, 1996, Harvard College; J.D., cum laude, 2001, Harvard Law School; Phi Beta Kappa; Member, California State Bar

Courses    Publications

Email:
Phone: (213) 738-6783
Room: BW323

David Fagundes' interest in the law grew out of his study of medieval legal history at Harvard College. As an undergraduate, he received the Philip Washburn Prize for best senior history thesis, the William Scott Ferguson Award for best sophomore essay, and the Department of History Award for best overall record as a history concentrator. He remained at Harvard for law school, where he served as an articles editor of the Harvard Law Review.

After law school, Professor Fagundes clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and then worked as an associate at Jenner & Block LLP for two years in Washington, D.C. His time in Washington included a leave from practice to be a Visiting Research Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. In 2005, Professor Fagundes joined the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law, where he spent two years developing his own scholarship while teaching the first-year legal research and writing course.

Professor Fagundes' research and teaching interests cover a variety of property law issues, including copyright, real property and land use. "The notion of property is ancient, but it has undergone profound changes in recent years," he said. "Examining different subject matter - real estate, chattels, copyrights, or patents - forces us to ask foundational questions about what property is, both as a social institution and a legal idea." His current work focuses on the relationship between law governing tangible and intangible property. In two recent articles, Professor Fagundes has argued that the rules and rhetoric of physical property can provide a template for thinking about intellectual property that is helpful, rather than inimical, to the public domain. He recently presented a forthcoming paper that is part of this project, "Property Rhetoric and the Public Domain," at the tenth annual Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum.

Professor Fagundes was appointed to the Southwestern faculty in Fall 2007. Originally from the Pomona Valley, he has enjoyed returning to Southern California and being in Los Angeles - and at Southwestern in particular - where the profession and legal education are "on the cutting edge of developments in intellectual property and entertainment law."