David A. DeJute

Biography

Professor DeJute currently teaches two classes at Pepperdine Caruso Law School. He works with Professor Sophia Hamilton as a faculty member and supervising attorney for students in the Disaster Recovery Clinic, a program designed to provide pro bono legal help to victims of the Woolsey Fire by enabling Pepperdine law students to learn applicable areas of substantive law and to apply that knowledge in the real. Professor DeJute also teaches Antitrust Law to second year students.

In addition to his responsibilities at Pepperdine Caruso Law School, Professor DeJute is also of counsel in Michelman and Robinson's Los Angeles office in the complex litigation department as well as general counsel at Dub Brothers, a seed to sale medicinal cannabis start-up company.

Prior to his responsibilities at Pepperdine Caruso Law School, Professor DeJute worked for a dozen years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office, where he handled a number of trials and appeals, including one brought against then-President Barack Obama alleging that, because he was not qualified to serve under the Constitution, he should be removed from office (the so-called "birther" dispute) and another involving the question of whether NASA properly held title to a moon rock. He also tried cases concerning constitutional tort violations, regulatory matters, medical malpractice, complex commercial disputes and fraud.

Before the U.S. Attorney's Office, Professor DeJute served as Vice President of Litigation at Sony Pictures. For a decade he supervised every aspect of litigation involving the entertainment company worldwide. Many of those disputes related to intellectual property, copyright violations, profit participation and talent agreements.

Professor DeJute began his legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable William J. Rea (deceased), a U.S. District Judge in the Central District of California, and then as an associate at Kaye Scholer (now Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer) and Kinsella, Boesch, Fujikawa & Towle.

Education

• J.D., Harvard Law School, 1990, cum laude
• B.A., University of Notre Dame, 1984, summa cum laude