Gerard E. Lynch is the Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He joined the faculty in 1977 as an assistant professor of law, and has risen through the academic ranks to appointment as full professor in 1986. He became the first Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law in 1996. From 1992 to 1997, he served as vice dean, with supervisory responsibility for curriculum, adjunct faculty, and student services. Lynch is the author of most notably a book-length study of criminal RICO, an influential account of our de facto administrative process of criminal adjudication and a number of articles about sentencing.

From 2000 through 2009, Lynch was United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, appointed by President Bill Clinton. He was appointed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Barack Obama in 2009.

In addition to his academic and judicial experience, Lynch clerked for Judge Wilfred Feinberg on the 2nd Circuit, and for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., at the Supreme Court. He was an Assistant United States Attorney in the SDNY from 1980 to 1983 (including serving as Chief Appellate Attorney), chief of the criminal division in that office from 1990 to 1992, and counsel to several special prosecutors investigating government corruption, including Iran/Contra. From 1992 to 2000, Lynch was counsel to the New York firm of Howard, Darby & Levin and its successor firms.  

In 1994, he won the Law School’s student-voted Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching. In 1997, he was the first Law School faculty member to receive the university’s Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. He has received the Wien Prize for Social Responsibility from Columbia Law School (2008), the Edward Weinfeld Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Administration of Justice from the New York County Lawyers Association (2009), and the Learned Hand Medal for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence from the Federal Bar Council (2016). He is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute.