Adam Hirsch

Karin Spidel
kspidel@SanDiego.edu
(619) 260-2962
Professor of Law
- PhD, 1987, Yale University
- JD, 1982, Yale University
- MPhil, 1982, Yale University
- MA, 1979, Yale University
- AB, 1976, Vassar College
Areas of Expertise
Wills and Trusts, Debtor/Creditor Law, Property, American Legal History
Professional Experience
Hirsch was the William & Catherine VanDercreek Professor of Law at Florida State University. He is an academic fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and serves on the Florida Historical Commission. He joined the USD School of Law faculty in 2013.
Honors and Affiliations
Hirsch's doctoral dissertation received the George Washington Egleston Prize for the best dissertation on American history. The dissertation was expanded into a book, The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America (Yale University Press, 1992). He has served as the Roger Traynor Fellow at Hastings College of Law.
Scholarly Work
- California Probate Code Annotated (Thomson Reuters 2022) (with McGovern)
- Models of Electronic-Will Legislation, 56 Real Property Trust and Estate Law Journal 163 (2021)
- Electronic-Will Legislation: The Uniform Act versus Australian and Canadian Alternatives, 34 Property & Probate 42 (2020) (with Kelety)
- Introduction, Symposium: Empirical Analysis of Wealth Transfer Law , 53 UC Davis Law Review 2083 (2020)
- Technology Adrift: In Search of a Role for Electronic Wills , 61 Boston College Law Review 827 (2020)
- Waking the Dead: An Empirical Analysis of Revival of Wills , 53 UC Davis Law Review 2269 (2020)
- Defective Catastrophe Clauses in Wills: Paths to Reform, 52 Real Property Trust and Estate Law Journal 339 (2018)
- Inheritance on the Fringes of Marriage, 2018 University of Illinois Law Review 156 (2018)
- Testation and the Mind, 74 (2017)