Areas of Expertise
Complex Litigation, Mass Claims
Biography
Jaime L. Dodge is the founding director of Emory’s Institute for Complex Litigation and Mass Claims.
Before coming to Emory, Dodge was a faculty member at Harvard Law School, where she taught Cross-Border Class Actions and Aggregate Dispute Resolution: Public and Private Process Design Seminar. She has also served as an assistant professor at the University of Georgia and an international visiting assistant professor at the Peking University School of Transnational Law, where she taught Cross-Border Financial Services Litigation and Aggregate Litigation.
Before teaching, Dodge practiced law for a number of years with Paul Hastings and later Gibson Dunn, where she represented clients at all phases of the litigation process. Dodge specialized in class action appeals and participated in successful challenges to two of the largest employment classes ever certified. At Gibson, she focused on the resolution of mass-claims, emphasizing class action settlement and claims administration. A past fellow at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, she has also served as a consultant on dispute resolution systems design and implementation for a variety of local, state, national and international organizations, including as a mediator and arbitrator. Among other work over the last two decades, Dodge has served as an advisor to a working group aiding a Middle Eastern nation in establishing new dispute resolution systems following regime change, a trainer for international groups of governmental officials and judges, and worked with the US Olympic Committee on its dispute resolution protocols.
Dodge's scholarship focuses on how the structure of procedural regimes, from aggregate litigation to alternative dispute resolution models, affects the exercise of rights and enforcement of substantive law. A panel of scholars drawn from the Yale, Harvard and Stanford faculties recognized Dodge’s scholarship as among the best by a tenure-track professor in civil procedure and dispute resolution, and was one of two selected for presentation at the Stanford/Harvard/Yale Forum. Her work has been published in the Harvard Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Minnesota Law Review. In addition, the Emory Law Journal published a special issue focused on Dodge’s contributions to reconceptualizing aggregate litigation. She has also been featured in articles on employment law, bankruptcy, and complex litigation by a variety of media outlets, including CNN and National Public Radio.
Dodge holds a B.A. in Psychology and International Development from Dartmouth College and a Masters in Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine University's School of Law. Dodge earned her J.D. from Harvard, where she served as the Supreme Court chairwoman of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, she clerked for Judge John T. Noonan Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. In her free time, Dodge serves on the board of directors of Random Acts, a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring and performing acts of kindness around the world.
Education: JD, Harvard University; Masters in Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine University; BA, Dartmouth College