Alex Kozinski (; born July 23, 1950) is a Romanian-American jurist and lawyer who was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1985 to 2017. He was a prominent and influential judge, and many of his law clerks went on to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court justices.
Alex Kozinski
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Chief Judge — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Born 1950 in Bucharest, Romania
FJC ID: 1314
Career output and lasting influence
Opinions attributed per year · peak 16/year
Later decisions citing those opinions, per year · peak 332/year
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals · 1985–2017
Both charts share the same year axis. Opinion counts include only opinions in our corpus attributed to this judge so far — a year at zero can mean an attribution gap, not judicial silence. Influence typically outlasts the career: citations keep climbing after the last opinion.
- Gender
- Male
- Race
- White
Prior employment
- Judicial Conference of the United StatesMember · 2007–2014
- U.S. Merit Systems Protection BoardSpecial counsel · 1981–1982
- Private practice, Washington, D.C.1979–1981
- President-Elect Ronald ReaganDeputy legal counsel · 1980–1981
- Office of Counsel to the PresidentAssistant counsel · 1981
- Private practice, Los Angeles, California1977–1979
Law clerk , Hon. Warren Burger · 1976–1977
Law clerk , Hon. Anthony Kennedy · 1975–1976
Appointments
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth CircuitChief Judge1985–2017 · Appointed by Ronald Reagan (Republican)Term ended: Retirement
Education
- University of California, Los Angeles, School of LawJ.D. · 1975
- University of California, Los AngelesA.B. · 1972