The Hispanic National Bar Foundation is pleased to introduce the 2026 HNBF’s Academic Leadership honoree.
Cristina M. Rodríguez is the Sol and Lillian Goldman Dean and Professor of Law at Yale Law School and faculty co-director of the Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership. Her career spans more than 25 years in academia, public service, and the legal profession. Dean Rodríguez holds the distinction of being the first Hispanic tenured professor and first Dean of Yale Law School.
Rodríguez is a widely recognized scholar whose research and teaching focus on constitutional law and theory, administrative law, and immigration law and policy. She has authored numerous academic articles and essays published in the Yale Law Journal and the Harvard Law Review, as well as myriad other scholarly journals, edited volumes, and general circulation publications. Rodríguez has also been a sought-after expert by major media outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Her recent work includes a series of empirically informed papers exploring accountability and policymaking within administrative agencies, particularly in the context of major developments in administrative law and the expansion of presidential power. She is also the co-author, with Adam B. Cox, of The President and Immigration Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), which examines two centuries of presidential influence over U.S. immigration policy. Legal scholars have described the book as a “remarkable scholarly achievement” that combines historical breadth with detailed institutional and legal analysis.
Rodríguez taught at NYU School of Law from 2004 to 2012 and has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia. She joined the faculty at Yale Law School in 2013 and was named the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law in 2014.
Rodríguez has also held significant public service roles. From 2011 to 2013, she served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, one of the highest honors given to employees in the Department of Justice, as well as recognition from the White House for her outstanding work. In 2021, she was appointed by the president to co-chair the bipartisan Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Her contributions to scholarship and public life have earned numerous honors. Rodríguez was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2020 and serves on the Council of the American Law Institute and the Administrative Conference of the United States. She received the Yale Law Women Excellence in Teaching Award in 2020 in recognition of her commitment to teaching and mentorship.
Rodríguez earned her B.A. in history from Yale College in 1995. She attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, where she received a master of letters in modern history in 1998. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2000. After law school, Rodríguez clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Learn more about Dean Rodríguez.
