William Burnham
Professor of Law
Office: Room 3401
Telephone: (313) 577-3928
Fax: (775) 599-4043
Home: (734) 663-1240
E-mail: w.burnham@wayne.edu
EDUCATION:
A.B., Indiana University
B.S., Indiana University
J.D., Indiana University
PROFILE:
William Burnham, Professor of Law, Wayne State University Law School, Detroit,
Michigan
Professor Burnham teaches Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, Civil Rights Litigation and Trial Advocacy. He has written several articles in these areas and has argued two federal civil rights cases before the United States Supreme Court. His latest project in the area is a book, Problems and Materials on Federal Courts (with Erwin Chemerinsky), to be published by Aspen Publishing Company.
On the international side, Professor Burnham’s interest and activities began with a 1991 Fulbright teaching fellowship at Moscow State University Law Department and Russian Humanities University. He currently teaches Comparative Law, Russian Law and various versions of a course on U.S. law for foreign lawyers. For these latter courses, Professor Burnham wrote Introduction to the Law and Legal System of the United States, 3d ed. (West 2002) (700 pp.), which is a leading text used by foreign lawyers and LL.M. students studying U.S. law. The book has been published in Ukrainian, Chinese and Russian, with Spanish and Georgian editions planned. Professor Burnham is also the principal author of the book, Law and Legal System of the Russian Federation, 3d Ed. (Juris Publishing 2004) (674 pp.) (with Maggs and Danilenko), published under the auspices of Parker School of International and Comparative Law at Columbia University. This book is designed to serve as the text for a course in Russian Law and as a reference work for lawyers, legal scholars and Russian area specialists. Using these books, he has taught Russian Law to J.D. students and American Constitutional Law and Legal Process to LL.M. students at the University of Michigan Law School. Professor Burnham also has several publications in Russian, among them the book, Sudebnaya Advokatura [Trial Advocacy] (St. Petersburg U. Press 1996) (with Proshlyakov and Reshetnikova), the first book on trial advocacy techniques for Russian lawyers. Professor Burnham has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Utrecht and University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, Kwansai Gakuin University in Japan, Moscow State University, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University, Urals State Law Academy, Mari State University and other Russian educational institutions. In 2001, he was the Fulbright Program’s Distinguished Chair in Comparative Law at the University of Trento Law Department in Italy.
Professor Burnham has also been actively involved in law reform activities in Russia. In 1992-1993 he served as a consultant to the Russian government on legislation introducing the first jury trials in Russia since the advent of Soviet power and was privileged to be an official American observer at the first such trial, held in Saratov in December, 1993. In 1997, he was a consultant for the World Bank, producing an analysis of the problems in Russian legal education and a grants program implementing needed reforms. In 2000-2002, he consulted with the Russian State Duma’s Committee on Legislation through the US Department of Justice on the drafting and implementation of Russia’s new Criminal Procedure Code. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he participated as a teacher, consultant or expert for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Federal Judicial Center, the Center for Constitutional and Legislative Policy, the American Bar Association’s Central and East European Law Initiative, the Soros Foundation, the Open Society Institute and the International Law Institute. In most of these venues, he taught or presented papers in Russian. His latest project is as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Justice, working with the drafting group that is writing a new Georgian Criminal Procedure Code.
He is also an accomplished clarinetist, playing co-principal clarinet in the University of Michigan's Campus Symphony Orchestra and several chamber ensembles.
