Paul Chander is a Deputy Attorney General at the California Department of Justice. As a member of the Antitrust Section, he enforces California and federal antitrust law through merger reviews, investigations and civil and criminal litigation. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, he was a senior associate at Baker McKenzie, where he practiced complex commercial litigation and maintained a pro bono practice focused on constitutional law.

Chander’s academic interests include political economy and the Constitution. His articles have been published in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog and Law360. At USC Gould, he teaches “Law and the U.S. Constitution in Global History.”

Chander began his legal career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Center for Community-Based Enterprise in Detroit, Mich., where he provided transactional legal services to small businesses to promote community economic development. He clerked for three judges at the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, including Hon. David Sotelo, Hon. Dennis J. Landín, and Hon. Craig D. Karlan. Before law school, Chander worked as a Field Organizer for the Obama-Biden campaign in Dayton, Ohio.

Chander serves on various organizations dedicated to advancing inclusion and equity in the law and legal profession. He has been the Judicial Evaluations co-chair of the South Asian Bar Association of Southern California; the Constitution in the Classroom chair of the American Constitution Society – Los Angeles Lawyer Chapter; and a member of the California Lawyers Association, Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section.

Chander earned his JD from Columbia Law School, where he was a Tony Patiño Fellow and a Lowenstein Fellow. He received his BA with honors from UCLA, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, awarded the Donald A. Strauss Public Service Scholarship, and granted the Distinguished Senior Award.