José Argueta Funes is an Assistant Professor at Berkeley Law. He is a historian studying the development of American law in imperial contexts. His current research uses litigation around the inheritance rights of adopted children in Hawai’i to explore the relationship between law and property reform, the history of legislation and the common law as modes of lawmaking, and the place of Indigenous legalities in settler polities. His work has been supported by the Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies, the American Society for Legal History, the Hurst Institute at the University of Wisconsin Law School, and the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation.
Argueta Funes was born and raised in San Salvador, El Salvador. He attended the University of Virginia as a Jefferson Scholar, graduating with a B.A. in history and philosophy. He earned a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Prior to joining the faculty at Berkeley Law, he served as a law clerk for Judge Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was an Academic Fellow at Columbia Law School.
Education
Ph.D., History, Princeton University (2024)
J.D., Yale Law School (2019)
M.A., History, Princeton University (2015)
B.A., University of Virginia (2013)
Jose Argueta Funes is teaching the following courses in Spring 2025:
• 218 sec. 001 - Legal History Colloquium
• 267 sec. 001 - American Legal History
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Fall 2025 | 203 sec. 002 | Property | 218 sec. 001 | Legal History Colloquium | Fall 2024 | 203 sec. 001 | Property | View Teaching Evaluation | Spring 2024 | 218 sec. 001 | Legal History Colloquium | View Teaching Evaluation | 267 sec. 001 | American Legal History | View Teaching Evaluation |
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