Rex Bossert
Assistant Dean for Communications and Public Affairs

What excites you most about joining the new law school administration?
What truly excites me about joining the UC Irvine School of Law is the prospect of helping Erwin and his handpicked team build an innovative and influential law school from the ground up. Rarely do you get a chance to start with a clean slate and completely remake an educational institution such as a law school. And we have the backing of the University of California, the greatest state university system in the country if not the world, which makes the law school’s prospects especially bright.

Describe a favorite project from your career.
I found my four-year stint as editor-in-chief of The National Law Journal especially rewarding in that we were able to refocus the editorial direction of the paper, revamp the website and reconfigure the staff, doubling the number of reporters.

What inspired you to go to law school?
What inspired me to learn more about the law is the realization that it is pervasive in our society—it is the skeleton of the body politic, if you will. To understand the law is to master an important bulwark of knowledge in our lives.

Rex Bossert
Contact info
rbossert@law.uci.edu
(949) 824-3063
401 E. Peltason Drive, 1052
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
Education
  • Stanford University, Ph.D., English literature, 1988
  • Northwestern University School of Law, J.D., 1987
  • Carleton College, B.A., English literature, magna cum laude, 1979
Prior appointments
  • The National Law Journal, editor-in-chief, 2004-2008
  • New York Law Journal, managing editor, 1999-2004
  • The National Law Journal, associate editor, 1997-1999
  • San Francisco Daily Journal; Los Angeles Daily Journal, reporter, 1989-1997
  • Stanford University English Department, instructor, 1987-1988
  • Stanford University, Engineering, Business and Law Schools, writing tutor, 1984-1989
Highlights
  • At The National Law Journal, Bossert ran the nation’s largest weekly newspaper for lawyers, managed a staff of 20 employees, and revised and oversaw the newspaper’s Web site.
  • At New York Law Journal, he managed the nation’s largest legal-affairs daily newspaper and supervised a team of 10 reporters.
Scholarships and awards
  • Stanford University fellowship (four years’ full tuition and stipend)
  • Northwestern School of Law, John Henry Wigmore Scholarship (three years’ full tuition)
  • Carleton College, Phi Beta Kappa