USC.edu

Dan Simon

Professor of Law and Psychology
Email dsimon@law.usc.edu

Video

Biography

Professor Dan Simon specializes in the field of Law & Psychology. He teaches Criminal Law, as well as various courses in the intersection of law and psychology. He also teaches a course on law and psychology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Professor Simon is the author of In Doubt: The Psychology of the Criminal Justice Process (Harvard University Press, 2012).  His publications in law reviews include “The Limited Diagnosticity of Criminal Trials” (Vanderbilt Law Review, 2011); “A Third View of the Black Box: Cognitive Coherence in Legal Decision Making” (The University of Chicago Law Review, 2004), and “A Psychological Model of Judicial Decision Making” (Rutgers Law Journal, 1988). He has also published a number of articles in experimental psychological journals, including “The Construction of Preferences by Constraint Satisfaction” (Psychological Science, 2004; with co-authors), “The Redux of cognitive consistency theories: Evidence judgments by constraint satisfaction” (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2004; with co-authors), and Bidirectional Reasoning in Decision Making by Constraint Satisfaction (Journal of Experimental Psychology—General, 1999, with Keith J. Holyoak).

Professor Simon has been a visiting professor at Yale Law School and Harvard Law School. He earned an S.J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and an LL.B. from Tel Aviv University. He worked as an attorney for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and was a member of the faculty of the University of Haifa Law School before joining the USC Gould School of Law in 1999. He is an ad hoc referee for the National Science Foundation, a number of academic presses, and various peer reviewed journals in experimental psychology.

  • Tenure Track Appointments

    • Richard L. and Maria B. Crutcher Professor of Law and Psychology, USC Gould School of Law, 2012 –
    • Professor of Law & Psychology, USC Gould School of Law, 2005 –
    • Professor of Law, USC Gould School of Law, 2004 –
    • Lecturer, Haifa University Law School, 1998-1999

    Visiting and Temporary Appointments

    • Visiting Professor of Law, Yale Law School,
    • Felix Frankfurter Visiting professor of Law, Harvard Law School,

  • Book

    • Simon, D. (2012). In Doubt: The Psychology of the Criminal Justice Process. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. In Doubt

    Journal Article

    • Brownstein, A., Simon, D., Read, S. J. (2005). Bias at the Racetrack: The Effect of Constraint Satisfaction Processing on Betting Decisions. Judgment and Decision Making. Vol. NA
    • Simon, D., Snow, C. J., Read, S. J. (2004). The Redux of Cognitive Consistency Theories: Evidence Judgments by Constraint Satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology/American Psychological Association. Vol. 86, pp. 814-837.