Gautam Hans

Gautam Hans is a Clinical Professor of Law and founding Director of the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic (CRCLC). In addition to CRCLC, he teaches Professional Responsibility and Critical Theory in Clinical Practice. He has served in multiple leadership roles in the national clinical legal education community, including as co-President of the Clinical Legal Education Association and on the board of the Center for Study of Applied Legal Education. In 2024, Professor Hans received the M. Shanara Gilbert Award from the American Association of Law Schools Section on Clinical Legal Education. In addition to his scholarship on free speech, technology law and policy, and clinical legal education, Professor Hans has a robust pro bono amicus practice in state and federal courts focusing on novel issues in free speech, privacy, and technology law. He is also a co-author of the leading Professional Responsibility casebook Ethical Problems in the Practice of Law (7th ed., 2025). Before joining Cornell Law, Professor Hans served as Associate Clinical Professor of Law and founding director of Vanderbilt Law School’s Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic. He completed his clinical teaching fellowship at the University of Michigan Law School. Prior to his academic career, Professor Hans worked at the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, CA, for four years, focusing on privacy, free speech, and surveillance law and policy. Professor Hans earned his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School; his M.S. in information policy from the University of Michigan School of Information; and his B.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.