At a Glance
Professor of Law

Harvard University, AB 1958, LLB 1963

Office: 30 Cargill Hall

Mail: 400 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115

Tel: (617) 373-3923

Fax: (617) 373-5056

E-mail: s.subrin@neu.edu

Curriculum Vitae


Northeastern University School of Law

Stephen N. Subrin

Before joining the Northeastern University faculty in 1970, Professor Subrin practiced civil litigation and labor law for seven years with the Boston firm of Burns & Levinson, where he became a partner in 1966. He has published extensively on civil procedure, with an emphasis on procedural reform, and the historical background of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Professor Subrin has taught Civil Procedure, Evidence, Complex Litigation, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Federal Courts, Civil Trial Practice, and Law and Literature: Life as a Lawyer. He was reporter to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Standing Advisory Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure for 12 years and was consultant to the reporter on the Local Rules Project of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Professor Subrin is coauthor of a seminal casebook, Civil Procedure: Doctrine, Practice, and Context. With Professor Margaret Y.K. Woo, he has written a text about American civil procedure for the Chinese legal community, published in Chinese. He and Professor Woo wrote Litigating in America, Civil Procedure in Context (Aspen Publishers, 2006).

Professor Subrin has taught Civil Procedure at Harvard Law School and Renmin University in Beijing, China, and Complex Litigation at Yale Law School. He has also taught Introduction to the American Legal System at the Cornell Summer Institute of International and Comparative Law in Paris.

Selected Publications
  • Articles:
  • “The Integration of Law and Fact in an Uncharted Parallel Procedural Universe” (with Main), 79 Notre Dame Law Review 1981, 2004.
  • “A Traditionalist Looks at Mediation: It’s Here to Stay and Much Better Than I Thought,” 3 Nevada Law Journal 196, 2003.
  • “Discovery in Global Perspective: Are We Nuts?” 52 DePaul Law Review 299, 2002.
  • “Fishing Expeditions Allowed: The Historical Background of the 1938 Federal Discovery Rules,” 39 Boston College Law Review 691, 1998.
  • “Teaching Civil Procedure While You Watch It Disintegrate,” 59 Brooklyn Law Review 1155, 1993.
  • “Substance in the Shadow of Procedure: The Integration of Substantive and Procedural Law in Title VII Cases” (with Baumann and Brown), 33 Boston College Law Review 211, 1992.
  • “The Role of Local Rules” (with Coquillette and Squires), 75 American Bar Association Journal 62, 1989.
  • “A Statistical Study of Bankruptcy in Massachusetts, with Emphasis on the Bankruptcy Bar and an Examination of the Proposed Bankruptcy Acts, Parts I and II,” 50 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 137, Spring, 1976. Parts III and IV (with Rugheimer), 50 American Bankruptcy Law Journal, 221, Summer 1976.
  • “Notice and the Right to Be Heard: the Significance of Old Friends” (with Dykstra), 9 Harvard Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review 449, 1974.
  • Books:
  • Litigating in America: Civil Procedure in Context (with Woo), Aspen Law and Business, 2006.
  • Civil Procedure: Doctrine, Practice and Context (with Minow, Brodin, and Main), Aspen Law & Business, 2000. (Second Edition, 2004) (First edition is also published in Chinese).
  • “Chapter and Forms on Massachusetts Civil Procedure,” Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Annual Practice Skills Course Books. Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc., 1967-1972.