Christopher Elmendorf

Professor Elmendorf works in the areas of property law, election law, statutory interpretation, and administrative law, using both doctrinal and empirical methods. He is a leading authority on California land-use and housing law, and has also done widely noted work on public understanding of housing markets and opinion about housing policy. 

His research has been published in numerous top law reviews and political science journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, New York University Law Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Political Analysis. It has also been covered by major media outlets including The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, and CalMatters.

Elmendorf enjoys translating academic research and legal developments for popular audiences. He’s known for breaking down everything from knotty judicial opinions to pending legislation with long Twitter (X) threads, and he’s written articles and op-eds for The Atlantic, Mother Jones, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Sometimes these various forms of public engagement come together, as when a Twitter thread about a housing controversy in San Francisco led to invited blog posts and op-eds, which he expanded into a law-review article, which engendered statutory reforms, which begat another Twitter thread and a webinar for practitioners.

Beyond the law school, Elmendorf serves on the advisory board of the Abundance Academic Network, a new initiative of Arnold Ventures to advance policy-minded research on housing, transportation, and clean-energy development. He has also served on working groups and task forces convened by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, and on the Legal Advisory Committee of the California Housing Defense Fund. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute.