Biography
Daniel Filler was an inaugural faculty member of the Kline School of Law, helping design and implement the distinctive vision that drives the law school. He became dean of Kline Law in January 2017. He previously served as a professor of law at the University of Alabama School of Law.
Dean Filler is a recognized legal scholar with expertise in criminal law and the intersection of law and technology. His research appears in leading journals including the Virginia Law Review, the California Law Review and the Iowa Law Review. The U.S. Supreme Court cited his work in the 2016 case, Nichols v. United States. His commentary on legal education is also widely read. In 2008, he co-founded The Faculty Lounge, a nationally recognized blog which has been honored several times as a member of the ABA Blawg 100.
Dean Filler also has deep practice experience. After working for the international corporate firm, Debevoise & Plimpton, he tried criminal cases as a public defender in Philadelphia and the Bronx. He represented clients in capital cases in Alabama. He also practiced special education law, creating and teaching a children’s rights clinic.
Dean Filler has been active in public policy work, with a particular focus on the death penalty. In 2012, he was appointed by the Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission to the state’s Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment. While in Alabama, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Alabama Death Penalty Assessment team, whose 2006 report was cited by the Supreme Court in the 2012 decision, Maples v. Thomas.
He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools. In 2017, Dean Filler was elected to the American Law Institute. He earned his JD from New York University School of Law after serving as an editor for the New York University Law Review and being named Outstanding Oralist in the Orison S. Marden Moot Court Competition. He clerked for Judge J. Dickson Phillips Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Dean Filler has been extensively quoted in media outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, NPR, and NBC News. He has lectured on legal education and American law at universities in China, Europe, and South America.