Hillel J. Bavli

Hillel J. Bavli is an Associate Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law. His teaching and scholarship interests are primarily in the fields of evidence and torts, and he is particularly interested in applications of statistics to law.

Professor Bavli's current work includes a book on character evidence (under contract with Cambridge University Press) and a large randomized experiment. His scholarship has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Legal Studies and Law, Probability & Risk, as well as in law reviews such as the Stanford Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Boston College Law Review, and U.C. Davis Law Review. He also serves on various panels and committees related to his areas of scholarship. His recent service includes, for example, memberships on the American Statistical Association Advisory Committee on Forensic Science, the AALS Section on Evidence Executive Committee, and a government-sponsored panel organized to review and improve proposed standards related to DNA testimony.

An experienced litigation attorney, Professor Bavli has practiced in the fields of complex commercial litigation, antitrust law, and criminal law, most recently at the firms Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and Boies Schiller Flexner LLP. Prior to joining SMU’s faculty, he also designed and taught a seminar course on the economic analysis of law in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. He received numerous awards for distinction in teaching for the course.

Professor Bavli received his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and his Ph.D. in Statistics in Law and Government from Harvard University. He also holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, an A.M. in Statistics from Harvard University, and a B.A. in Economics from Boston University. He completed a Fulbright Fellowship, studying game theory, in Jerusalem, Israel, as well as short-term clerkships at the Supreme Court of India and the Supreme Court of Rwanda. He also held a fellowship at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science and a visiting fellowship at the Yale Law School Center for Private Law.