Hanoch Dagan joined the Berkeley Law faculty in fall 2023 as a Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Berkeley Center for Private Law Theory.
Professor Dagan writes and teaches primarily in the areas of private law theory, contracts, property, and legal theory. Among his many publications are over 120 articles in major law reviews and journals, such as Yale Law Journal, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, California Law Review, and more. Dagan is the author of eight books, including Property: Values and Institutions (Oxford University Press, 2011), Reconstructing American Legal Realism & Rethinking Private Law Theory (Oxford University Press, 2013), The Choice Theory of Contracts (with Michael A. Heller) (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and A Liberal Theory of Property (Cambridge University Press, 2021). He edited six books, including Properties of Property (Wolters Kluwer, 2012) (with Gregory S. Alexander) and Research Handbook on Private Law Theory (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020) (with Benjamin Zipursky). Dagan’s latest book, Relational Justice: A Theory of Private Law (2024; with Avihay Dorfman) just came out with Oxford University Press.
Before joining the Berkeley faculty, Professor Dagan was the Stewart and Judy Colton Professor of Legal Theory and Innovation and the Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Tel-Aviv University. Professor Dagan is also a former Dean of TAU’s Faculty of Law and served as the founding Director of the Zvi Meitar Center for Advanced Legal Studies, the Director of The Cegla Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the Law, and the Editor in Chief of Theoretical Inquiries in Law.
Professor Dagan has been a visiting professor at Yale, Columbia, Michigan, Cornell, UCLA, and Toronto. Dagan delivered keynote speeches and endowed lectures at Singapore, Alabama, Toronto, Queensland, Cape Town, Monash (Melbourne), and Oxford. He is a member of the American Law Institute and the International Academy of Comparative Law.
Education
LL.B., Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law (1988)
LL.M., Yale Law School (1991)
J.S.D., Yale Law School (1993)
Hanoch Dagan is teaching the following courses in Fall 2024:
• 202F sec. 004 - Contracts
• 203.2 sec. 1 - Private Law Theory
• 215.9 sec. 001 - Legal Theory Seminar
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title | Spring 2024 | 203.2 sec. 001 | Private Law Theory | 215.9 sec. 001 | Legal Theory Seminar | Fall 2023 | 202F sec. 003 | Contracts |
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Hanoch Dagan’s ‘Relational Justice’ Book Drawing Rave Reviews
Co-authored with Avihay Dorfman, Relational Justice: A Theory of Private Law argues that private law should, and to a significant degree already does, abide by two fundamental commitments: reciprocal respect for self-determination and substantive equality.
Inaugural Contract Theory Workshop Hosts ‘Dream Team’ of International Scholars
The new Berkeley Center for Private Law Theory event drew scholars from across the globe for a two-day event discussing scholarly works in progress.
Greatest Hits: A Dozen Stories From 2023 That Reflect Berkeley Law’s Impact
From helping to write a tribe’s constitution to providing free training worldwide on digital investigations of human rights violations to propelling crypto industry reform, the school had quite a year.
‘The Leading Light’: Professor Hanoch Dagan Launches Berkeley Center for Private Law Theory
A world-renowned scholar, Dagan will guide the center’s work investigating how we define our property, contract, and tort rights — and how that defines us as a society.
Sterling Scholars: Eight New Professors Further Bolster Our World-Class Faculty
“The quality of any educational institution is largely determined by the quality of its faculty and we simply could not have had a better year in our hiring,” Dean Erwin Chemerinsky says.