 magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1983.He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court (where he clerked alongside future colleague and NYU Law Dean Richard Revesz), after which he practiced law in Boston.He began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, where he was assistant and then full professor of law from 1988 until 1999, when he joined the NYU School of Law faculty.