JAMES A. GARDNER 

James A. Gardner is Bridget and Thomas Black SUNY Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at the State University of New York, University at Buffalo School of Law, where from 2001 to 2025 he taught in the areas of constitutional, government, and election law.  Gardner is the author or editor of eight books and nearly one hundred articles and book chapters dealing mainly with constitutional law and democracy.  Gardner served as Vice Dean of the Law School from 2007 to 2012, and as Interim Dean from  2014 through 2017.  In his spare time, he performs around Western New York as a professional jazz pianist.

According to Election Law Blog and Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports, Gardner is the 8th most frequently cited scholar in the field of election law. Gardner’s books include Comparative Election Law (Edward Elgar Publishing: 2022), Election Law in the American Political System (Aspen : 2020), What Are Campaigns For? The Role of Persuasion in Electoral Law and Politics (Oxford University Press) and Legal Argument: The Structure and Language of Effective Advocacy (Carolina Academic Press).  His articles have appeared in Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Texas Law Review, International Journal of Constitutional Law, American Journal of Comparative Law, and many other venues.

He has taught at Western New England University, William and Mary, the University of Connecticut and Florida State University. In 2012, he held the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in the Theory and Practice of Constitutionalism and Federalism at McGill University in Montreal, and in 2015 was the Federalism Scholar in Residence at the European Academy’s Institute for Comparative Federalism in Bolzano, Italy. In 2018, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Barcelona.

Gardner received his BA from Yale University in 1980 and his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1984. From 1984 to 1988, he practiced law in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.