James Weinstein is the Dan Cracchiolo Chair in Constitutional Law in the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, a faculty fellow in the Center for Law, Science and Innovation at Arizona State University and an associate fellow with the Centre for Public Law at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Weinstein's areas of academic interest are Constitutional Law, especially Free Speech, as well as Jurisprudence and Legal History. He is co-editor of Extreme Speech and Democracy (Oxford University Press 2009, paperback edition 2010); the author of "Hate Speech, Pornography and the Radical Attack on Free Speech Doctrine" (Westview Press 1999); and has written numerous articles in law review symposia on a variety of free speech topics, including: free speech theory, obscenity doctrine, institutional review boards, commercial speech, database protection, campaign finance reform, the relationship between free speech and constitutional rights, hate crimes, and campus speech codes. Professor Weinstein has litigated several significant free speech cases, primarily on behalf of Arizona Civil Liberties Union. Earlier in his career, he wrote several influential articles on the history of personal jurisdiction and its implication for modern doctrine. Professor Weinstein also has been a principal speaker at numerous national and international conferences on free speech issues.
During law school, he was a member of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review Board of Officers. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to James R. Browning, Chief Judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and then practiced civil litigation in Los Angeles for several years before joining the faculty in 1986.