Rate My Professor Ann Estin

Ann Laquer Estin is Aliber Family Chair in Law Emerita at the University of Iowa College of Law, where she has served as professor since 1999, Aliber Family Chair since 2008, and Associate Dean for Faculty since 2019. Prior to joining Iowa, she was an associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Law from 1989 to 1999. Her earlier career included private practice as an attorney at Bender & Treece, P.C. in Denver, Colorado from 1985 to 1989, focusing on general litigation including civil, criminal, and domestic relations matters, and a clerkship with the Honorable Zita L. Weinshienk on the United States District Court for the District of Colorado from 1983 to 1984. Estin earned her J.D. cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1983, where she was Articles Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and received the Leebron Prize for the best paper in Constitutional Law, and her A.B. cum laude in Anthropology from Dartmouth College in 1979.

Estin's teaching areas encompass Family Law, International and Comparative Family Law, British Legal System, Federal Indian Law, and Contracts. Her research specializations center on family law and international family law, including cross-border children's law, child welfare in abduction and asylum proceedings, migration, and human rights. She is a member of the American Law Institute and the International Society of Family Law, on whose Executive Council she has served, and has acted as an expert observer at the Hague Conference on Private International Law for several Hague Children’s Conventions. Awards include the Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1999, Junior Presidential Teaching Scholar there in 1989-1990, and Global Scholar Award from the University of Iowa College of Law in 2009-2011. Key publications feature books such as Domestic Relationships: A Contemporary Approach (2d ed. 2019), International Family Law Desk Book (2d ed. 2016), International Family Law (editor, 2016), and The Multi-Cultural Family (editor, 2008), alongside articles like "Child Migrants and Child Welfare: Toward a Best Interests Approach" (Washington University Global Studies Law Review, 2018) and "Marriage and Divorce Conflicts in International Perspective" (Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law, 2017).