David Engdahl
Professor of Law
Room 415, Seattle University School of Law
Phone: (206) 398-4075
E-mail: engdahld@seattleu.edu
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David Engdahl | |
Teaches Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, Conflict of Laws
A.B. University of Kansas 1961. LL.B. University of Kansas Law School 1964. S.J.D. University of Michigan Law School 1969.
After law school, Professor Engdahl declined a teaching fellowship offered him by the Harvard Law School in order to pursue graduate study in law at the University of Michigan, where his doctoral work on the legal history of marriage and the conflict of laws influenced the treatment of marriage in the Restatement (Second) of the Conflict of Laws. His law school teaching career began at Colorado in 1966, but in 1975 Professor Engdahl resigned his academic tenure to assume responsibility for legal services to that state’s colleges and universities as an Assistant Attorney General. Later he founded a small, general-practice firm in Denver, and specialized in constitutional issues until accepting a faculty appointment at the law school here in 1981.
Professor Engdahl’s practice in two states and several different federal District Courts and Courts of Appeal, as well as the Supreme Court, involved him in some nationally prominent pro bono and public interest cases in the 1970’s, including those arising out of the National Guard shooting of students at Kent State University and the domestic use of military resources to end the American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee. His dominant interest, however, has been the constitutional allocation of power among state and federal governments. He was general counsel to the Western Interstate Energy Board for two years, and an advisor to the Western Governors’ Policy Office. He has been a consultant and draftsman for interstate compacts and agreements, and has been of counsel to various states (and on occasion, to the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties) in several cases involving federalism issues.
Professor Engdahl’s publications include the handbook Constitutional Federalism in a Nutshell (West, 1987); chapters in several other books; and more than thirty-five scholarly articles, several of which have materially influenced the course of constitutional discussion and decision on the issues he has addressed.