Mark Cammack
Professor of Law
B.A., magna cum laude, Asian Studies, Brigham Young University, 1979
University Fellow, South Asian Studies, 1980-81
J.D., cum laude, University of Wisconsin, 1983
Fulbright Fellow, Jakarta, Indonesia, 1984-85
Order of the Coif
Member, New York, Utah, and Wisconsin State Bars
Mark Cammack entered law teaching in order to pursue his interest in comparative law and the Indonesian legal system. He became interested in Indonesia and learned to speak Indonesian after living in the country for two years during college. He went on to study both law and Southeast Asian history as a University Fellow in the Department of South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. Upon graduation from law school, he accepted a clerkship with Justice Roland Day of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Professor Cammack then applied for and received a Fulbright grant, and spent the next year in Indonesia conducting field research on the country's Islamic court system. The results of this research were later published in the International and Comparative Law Quarterly.
"By studying the laws of other countries, we can see that our own laws and legal institutions are neither universal nor inevitable."
Upon returning to the United States, Professor Cammack practiced law for three years as an assistant district attorney in New York City. He left the D.A.'s office in 1988 to teach legal research and writing at Columbia Law School. In 1990, Professor Cammack joined the faculty at Southwestern and was named as the Irwin R. Buchalter Professor of Law in 2001.
An interest in judicial institutions and procedure forms a common thread in all of Professor Cammack's scholarship. He has taught and written about the American jury and the procedural rules in U.S. criminal trials. His research on Indonesia has focused on the modernization of the country's Islamic judiciary and the effect of these institutional changes on substantive law. Professor Cammack has also participated in several collaborative studies that have used survey data to evaluate the impact of state family law policies on underage marriage, divorce, and contraceptive use.
Professor Cammack is frequently called on for his expertise on the Indonesian legal system. In 2002 he was chosen by the United Nations to monitor the trials of Indonesian military, police and civilian officials charged with human rights crimes committed in East Timor following the vote for independence in 1999. He has served as an expert witness on matters related to Indonesian law, and is currently an affiliated faculty member at the Asian Law Center at the University of Washington where he advises Ph.D. students writing about Indonesia.