Michael I. Krauss

Biographical Sketch

In 1994, Professor Emeritus of Law Michael I. Krauss became the law school's first recipient of the university's "Teacher of the Year" award for his engaging and challenging approach in the classroom. At a national level in 2010, he was nominated for Best Law Teacher by the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning. He has been teaching at George Mason University since 1987 and also has taught at the law schools of Seattle University, the University of Toronto, and the Université de Sherbrooke in Canada. Born in the United States but raised in Canada, Professor Krauss earned his BA cum laude from Carleton University, his LLB summa cum laude from the Université de Sherbrooke, and his LLM from Yale Law School. He was Columbia University's Law and Economics Fellow in 1981.

Hired as a law clerk by Justice Louis-Philippe Pigeon of Canada's Supreme Court, Professor Krauss practiced law for Quebec City's largest law firm before entering academia. He also served for five years on Quebec's Human Rights Commission. A Salvatori Fellow of the Heritage Foundation and an Academic Fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, Professor Krauss sits on the advisory boards of several other think tanks. He sits on the Board of Governors of the National Association of Scholars.  He or his op-eds have appeared in varied electronic media (including CNN, CNNfn, C-Span, Fox News, Fox News Online, Hudson Institute Online, National Public Radio, National Review Online, Tech Central Station, Voice of America, CBC, Radio-Canada, and West German Radio) as well as in a wide array of newspapers (including the Wall St. Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Baltimore Sun, Washington Times, Tulsa Journal, Kansas City Star, [Montreal] La Presse, Montreal Gazette, [Montreal] Le Devoir, [Toronto] Globe and Mail, and Japan Times).

Professor Krauss's research on torts and ethics issues is nationally known. His (co-authored) Second Edition of Legal Ethics in a Nutshell, was published in 2006. This book digests the Model Rules in an engaging and often critical fashion. In 2014, West Academic Publishing published the Second Edition of Professor Krauss's Principles of Products Liability, part of the Concise Hornbook Series.