Norman Abrams

2006-2007

Norman Abrams became acting chancellor of UCLA on July 1, 2006. A professor in the UCLA School of Law, Abrams has been a member of the UCLA family since 1959. He teaches and writes in the areas of federal criminal law, anti-terrorism law and evidence.

From 1991 to 2001, Abrams served as UCLA’s vice chancellor of academic personnel, overseeing faculty appointments and promotions on the campus. He served as interim dean of the law school from 2003 to 2004, and earlier had served as associate dean, from 1989 to 1991.

The fourth edition of Abrams’ groundbreaking casebook on federal criminal law, Federal Criminal Law and Its Enforcement (with Beale), was published in 2006. Another of his books, Anti-Terrorism and Criminal Enforcement, (2nd ed., 2005), is the first casebook to deal comprehensively with the rapidly evolving field of anti-terrorism law and the criminal enforcement process. He is also a co-author of Evidence — Cases and Materials, 9th ed. (with Berger, Mansfield, and Weinstein).

A native of Chicago, Abrams holds A.B. and J.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. While a student, he was editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law Review.

Before joining UCLA, he served as an associate in law at Columbia University Law School and as a research associate and director of the Harvard-Brandeis Cooperative Research for Israel’s Legal Development at the Harvard Law School. While on leave from UCLA in 1966-67, he served as a special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.