Rate My Professor Linda Silberman

Linda J. Silberman is the Clarence D. Ashley Professor of Law Emerita at New York University School of Law. She earned her B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1965 and her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School in 1968. Following graduation, she practiced at the Chicago firm Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal before joining NYU Law in 1971 as the first woman hired for the tenure-track faculty. In 1977, she became the first woman to receive tenure at NYU Law. Silberman assumed emerita status in September 2022 but continues as Co-Director of the NYU Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Commercial Law. Throughout her 51-year tenure, she taught Civil Procedure to hundreds of first-year students for over 30 years, Conflict of Laws across her career, and in recent decades, Comparative Civil Procedure, Transnational Litigation, and International Arbitration.

Silberman's academic interests encompass civil procedure, conflict of laws, comparative civil procedure, transnational litigation, international commercial arbitration, and international child abduction. She co-authored the leading casebook Civil Procedure: Theory and Practice (with Allan R. Stein and Tobias Barrington Wolff; Wolters Kluwer, 6th ed. 2022) and Civil Litigation in Comparative Context (with Andreas F. Lowenfeld). Her prolific scholarship has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals, and foreign courts. At the American Law Institute, she served as Co-Reporter (with Andreas Lowenfeld) for Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments: Analysis and Proposed Federal Statute (2006) and as Adviser on the Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law, Restatement of U.S. Law on International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration, and Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws. Silberman participated in numerous U.S. State Department delegations to the Hague Conference on Private International Law and delivered the general course on Private International Law at the Hague Academy in 2021. A 2023 conference honored her enduring impact on transnational civil litigation, comparative law, choice of law, jurisdiction, and international arbitration.