Herbert Hovenkamp

Herbert Hovenkamp (born 1948 ) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of U.S. antitrust law. He serves as James G. Dinan University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Wharton School, having previously been a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law for more than 30 years.

According to the New York Times, many consider Hovenkamp "the dean of American antitrust law." He is one of the two authors, along with the late Phillip Areeda, of the leading American antitrust law treatise, Antitrust Law, which is the most-cited antitrust legal authority in the United States.

Biography Hovenkamp was born in 1948. He graduated from Calvin College in 1969, then did graduate study at the University of Texas at Austin, receiving an M.A. in American literature in 1971 and a Ph.D. in American civilization in 1976. He also attended the University of Texas School of Law, receiving a Juris Doctor degree in 1978.

Hovenkamp was a law professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law (now University of California College of the Law, San Francisco) from 1980 to 1985 and at the University of Iowa College of Law from 1985 to 2017. Hovenkamp is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Antitrust scholarship Hovenkamp has been called "the most influential antitrust scholar of our generation" and the New York Times reported that many consider him "the dean of American antitrust law." Along with the late Phillip Areeda, Hovenkamp is one of the two authors of Antitrust Law, a widely cited American antitrust law treatise. The Areeda and Hovenkamp treatise is the single most-cited antitrust legal authority.

In each of the last ten antitrust cases heard by the United States Supreme Court, either the petitioner or the solicitor general pointed to Hovenkamp as supporting the position the justices were being urged to take. Professor Hovenkamp’s writings have been cited in 36 Supreme Court decisions and more than 1300 decisions in the lower courts.

Thomas Hungar, deputy solicitor general of the United States from 2003 to 2008, has called Hovenkamp one of the prime shapers of antitrust legal interpretation by U.S. courts.

In 2008, Hovenkamp received the John Sherman Award from the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. The award is presented approximately once every three years to "a person or persons for their outstanding achievement in antitrust law, contributing to the protection of American consumers and to the preservation of economic liberty."

Selected works Books

3rd edition (2006); 4th edition (2013); 5th edition (2020).

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