Adam Zimmerman

Robert Kingsley Professor of Law
Last Updated: January 16, 2024

Adam Zimmerman joined USC Gould School of Law from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. He teaches Tort Law, Civil Procedure, Administrative Law and Mass Tort Law. Zimmerman’s scholarship explores how class action attorneys, regulatory agencies and criminal prosecutors provide justice to large groups of people through overlapping systems of tort law, administrative law and procedural law.

His recent articles have been accepted for publication in the Chicago Law ReviewColumbia Law ReviewDuke Law JournalNew York University Law ReviewTexas Law ReviewUniversity of Pennsylvania Law ReviewVirginia Law Review and the Yale Law Journal, among others. His influential scholarship and amicus briefs have also impacted aggregate litigation and group petitions across courts, agencies and other institutions. The federal government adopted Zimmerman’s recommendations to permit class actions in administrative hearings based on findings that appear in his article, Inside the Agency Class ActionYale Law Journal  Vol. 126  (2017). His most recent article, Ghostwriting FederalismYale Law Journal Vol. 133 (forthcoming 2024), charts the long-unexamined ways that federal agencies draft state legislation and assesses how they can improve group participation and experimentation in our federal system of government.

Zimmerman’s teaching methods have been featured in the national news media. Student bar associations named him Best New Law Professor in 2011, as well as Professor of the Year in 2013 and 2022.

Zimmerman graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law, where he served as associate editor of the Georgetown Law Journal and co-founded the first student chapter of the American Constitutional Society in the country. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Jack B. Weinstein in the Eastern District of New York. He then served as counsel to Special Master Kenneth R. Feinberg in the design and administration of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Afterwards, he was associated with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, where he represented clients in complex commercial litigation and mass tort cases, as well as domestic and international arbitration.