Speaker

UC Irvine School of Law

Speaker Bio

Senator Dunn is currently the Assistant Dean for External Relations as well as a Lecturer at the UCI School of Law. He serves as the primary point person for the launch of the UCI Cybersecurity Policy and Research Institute, the Civil Justice Research Institute, and the UCI Institute on Policing in Society.

Senator Dunn was a member of the California State Senate from 1998-2006. While serving in the Legislature, he chaired key committees such as the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Housing and Transportation Committee. He received international acclaim as Chair of the Senate Investigation Committee into the 2001 California Energy Crisis. California Lawyer Magazine labeled Senator Dunn as “the Man Who Cracked Enron.”

Between 2006-2014, Sen. Dunn served as CEO of both the State Bar of California, the judicial branch regulatory body overseeing all aspects of the profession of law, and the California Medical Association, the most influential state medical organization in the nation, representing more than 30,000 California doctors.

Prior to entering the Senate, Senator Dunn practiced law, handling products liability litigation involving defective medical devices and pharmaceuticals, as well as environmental cases. He worked in the Newport Beach Office of Robins Kaplan after law school and joined Robinson Calcagnie & Robinson where he continued to focus on products liability and complex litigation until his election to the Senate.

He received his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of Minnesota School of Law (1983) and his B.A magna cum laude from The College of St. Thomas (1980).