Keith Hand

Professor Keith Hand brings more than 25 years of experience in private practice, government, and academia to his teaching and research.  His research focuses on legal reform in Greater China, with particular attention citizen legal mobilization and the expansion of Chinese domestic law as a tool of foreign policy.  

Professor Hand holds a JD and an MA in China Studies from the University of Washington.  After law school, he joined Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where his practice focused on mergers and acquisitions and private equity funds. He later served as senior counsel to the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China and as Beijing director and senior fellow at Yale Law School’s China Law Center.  In 2009, he joined the faculty of the UC Law San Francisco, where has served as Associate Dean for Global Programs and directs the Center for East Asian Legal Studies.  

• Contracts
• International business transactions
• Chinese law
• Academic freedom

• Chinese law
• Legal institutions

• University of Washington, JD, 2000
• University of Washington, MA China Studies, 1997
• Whitman College, BA in History, 1992

• Professor of Law, University of California College of the Law, San Francisco
• Senior Fellow, Yale Law School China Law Center
• Senior Counsel, U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China
• Corporate Associate, Paul Weiss Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison

• Keith J. Hand, Waging External Struggle through Law: China’s Evolving Legal Strategies and Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit, UC San Diego 21st Century China Center Special Report, October 2022
• Keith J. Hand, Constitutional Supervision in China after the 2018 Amendment of the PRC Constitution: Refining the Narrative of Constitutional Supremacy in a Socialist Legal System, 23 ASIAN PAC. L. POL’Y J. 137 (2022)
• Keith J. Hand, Understanding China’s System for Addressing Legislative Conflicts: Capacity Challenges and the Search for Legislative Harmony, 26 COLUM. J. ASIAN LAW 139 (Spring 2013)
• Keith Hand, Resolving Constitutional Disputes in Contemporary China, 7 U. PENN. EAST ASIA LAW REV. 51 (2012)
• Keith Hand, Using Law for a Righteous Purpose: The Sun Zhigang Incident and Evolving Forms of Citizen Action in the People’s Republic of China, 45 COLUM. J. TRANSNT’L LAW 114 (2006)