Associate Professor of Law

Kaipo Matsumura’s research focuses on how the law generates, shapes, and accommodates individual preferences in its regulation of intimate relationships and the family. His recent work in the area has focused on the role of choice in the design of state marriage policy as well as the use and limits of private agreements. Professor Matsumura teaches Civil Procedure, Family Law, and a seminar on Reproduction and Reproductive Technologies. In 2017, he was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award by vote of the graduating class.

Professor Matsumura joined the ASU law faculty in 2014 after spending three years teaching at Stanford Law School as a Thomas C. Grey Fellow. He previously practiced antitrust, patent, and appellate law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Before entering private practice, Professor Matsumura served as a law clerk to the Honorable A. Wallace Tashima of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Matsumura is licensed to practice in California and several federal courts. 

Professor Matsumura graduated from UCLA School of Law, where he served as Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, earned the Jerry Pacht Memorial Constitutional Law Award, and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He received a degree in English and Communication Studies, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University. Before law school, Professor Matsumura spent four years teaching high school English in Santa Monica, California.