harvey
josephine
PERLMAN, J.D.
POTUTO, J.D.
» unl chancellor
» faculty athletics representative
Harvey Perlman was named the 19th Chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on
April 1, 2001. He had served as Interim Chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since
July 16, 2000.
A former dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law (1983-98), Perlman has also
served as interim senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at UNL (1995-96).
A Nebraska native, Perlman was raised in York, and earned a bachelor of arts in history and
a juris doctorate from the University of Nebraska. During his law school years, he was editor
in chief of the Nebraska Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif, a law honors
society.
He joined the NU law faculty in 1967 after spending a year as a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at
the University of Chicago Law School. He served on the Nebraska law faculty until 1974 when
he joined the faculty at the University of Virginia Law School. He returned to Nebraska in 1983
when he accepted the deanship of the Nebraska Law College, a post he held until 1998 when
he returned to the professoriate. He has also served as a visiting professor at Florida State
University College of Law, the University of Puget Sound School of Law and the University of
Iowa College of Law.
In 2011, Perlman was named an Honorary University Professor of Xi’an Jiaotong University, in
Xi’an, China. This rare lifetime appointment entitles Perlman to privileges at the university, with
which UNL has many institutional ties. Perlman also will occasionally lecture and teach at Xi’an
Jiaotong University. The title is the highest honor the university awards to a foreign scholar,
and recognizes Perlman as an accomplished scholar or professional of important international
reputation. The award also recognizes Perlman for his significant efforts in globalizing UNL and
Xi’an Jiaotong University through joint research and partnership degree programs.
His area of legal expertise lies in torts and intellectual property. He is a member of the
Nebraska State and American Bar Associations and is a Life Fellow of the American Bar
Association. Perlman is co-author of “Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition” (5th edition,
1998) and co-reporter for the American Law Institute’s “Restatement of Unfair Com