David M. Skover

David M. Skover is the Fredric C. Tausend Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law. He teaches, writes, and lectures in the fields of federal constitutional law, federal jurisdiction, mass communications theory, and the First Amendment. David graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Domestic Affairs at Princeton University and received his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Thereafter, he served as a law clerk for Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

He has coauthored four books with Ron Collins—The Trials of Lenny Bruce (2002, 2012) (Los Angeles Times' selection for "Best Book of the Year" of 2002), Mania (2013), On Dissent (2013), and The Death of Discourse (1996, 2005)—as well as Tactics of Legal Reasoning (1986) with Pierre Schlag. In addition, he has coauthored with Ron Collins some twenty scholarly pieces in various journals, including the Supreme Court Review, Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Texas Law Review, the Nation magazine, and the Yale Bibliographical Dictionary of American Law.

In 2003 Skover and Collins successfully petitioned the governor of New York to posthumously pardon Lenny Bruce. And in 2004 they received the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for The Trials of Lenny Bruce and their pardon effort.

Skover appears frequently on network affiliate television, is heard often on radio interviews, and has been quoted in the national popular press, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, on a spectrum of issues ranging from First Amendment law to pop media culture and theory. He also is a regionally acclaimed opera and musical theater performer.

For more information, visit www.skoveronline.net.