Before commencing his academic career in 2007, Professor Pimentel headed the Rule of Law efforts in South Sudan for the United Nations Mission in Sudan, and has led court reform projects in Bosnia and Romania as well. He spent four years as the Chief of Court Management at the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Netherlands. He has done research and consulting on issues of judicial structure and legal pluralism in Nepal, South Sudan, Mozambique, and Turkey. Professor Pimentel has considerable experience in the federal court system, particularly in the Circuit Executive's Offices in the 9th and 5th circuits, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts; he spent the 1997-98 year in Washington as a Supreme Court Fellow. He commenced his career in the judiciary clerking for Senior District Judge Martin Pence, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, in Honolulu, after two years of practice with the law firm Perkins Coie in Seattle. Professor Pimentel spent the 2010-11 academic year as a Fulbright Scholar at University of Sarajevo, researching the impact of post-war judicial reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Professor Pimentel studied law at Berkeley and Harvard, earning his J.D. and M.A. (economics) from the University of California, Berkeley. His B.A., summa cum laude, is from Brigham Young University.
Articles
Culture and the Rule of Law: Cautions for Constitution-making, Fordham Int'l L. J. Online (2013)
Constitution-making in developing and post-conflict countries is a growth industry throughout the world. A country...
Criminal Child Neglect and the "Free Range Kid": Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care?, Utah Law Review (2012)
In the last generation, American parenting norms have shifted strongly in favor of Intensive Parenting,...
Forfeitures Revisited: Bringing Principle to Practice in Federal Court, Nevada Law Journal (2012)
Dramatically expanded use of federal forfeitures since the 1980s has raised persistent concerns about government...
Judicial Independence at the Crossroads: Grappling with Ideology and History in the New Nepali Constitution, Indiana International and Comparative Law Review; Indian Journal of Constitutional Law (2011)
Nepal is struggling to produce a new constitution, the blueprint for a new post-monarchic state,...
Legal Pluralism in Post-colonial Africa: Linking Statutory and Customary Adjudication in Mozambique, Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal (2011)
Legal pluralism is a contemporary reality and a challenge in most post-colonial African states, as...