Naomi Cahn is a Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Law, Armistead M. Dobie Professor of Law, and co-director of UVA Law’s Family Law Center.
Cahn is an expert in family law, trusts and estates, feminist jurisprudence, reproductive technology, and aging and the law. Prior to joining the University of Virginia faculty in 2020, she taught at George Washington Law School, where she twice served as associate dean.
Cahn is a co-author of casebooks in both family law and trusts and estates, and she has written numerous articles exploring the intersections among family law, trusts and estates, and feminist theory, as well as essays concerning the connections between gender and international law. In addition, she is the author or editor of books written for both academic and trade publishers. Her books include “Red Families v. Blue Families” (Oxford University Press, 2010, with Professor June Carbone): “Homeward Bound” (Oxford University Press, 2017, with Amy Ziettlow); and “Unequal Family Lives” (Cambridge University Press, 2018, co-edited with UVA professor Brad Wilcox and others).
Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and New Yorker, and she has appeared on numerous media outlets, including NPR and MSNBC. She is also a senior contributor to the Forbes Leadership Channel, for which she regularly writes posts on gender equity.
In 2017, Cahn won the Harry Krause Lifetime Achievement in Family Law Award from the University of Illinois College of Law. She has worked with the Uniform Law Commission as a reporter for two drafting committees. In addition to her work with the commission, Cahn is a member of the American Law Institute, an elected fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, editor of the ACTEC Law Journal and a member of the American Bar Foundation, among other commitments. She serves on the editorial board of the Family Court Review. In addition, she has chaired and been on the steering committee for some of the major Association of American Law Schools sections, such as Women in Legal Education, Family & Juvenile Law, Aging and Africa. From 2002-04, Cahn researched gender-based violence while on leave and living in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Prior to joining the faculty at GW Law, Cahn practiced with Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., and with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia.