Biography

Nicholas M. McLean joined the faculty of the William S. Richardson School of Law in August 2024 as an assistant professor of law. He teaches Constitutional Law, Professional Responsibility, and Appellate Advocacy.

Professor McLean’s scholarship explores contemporary issues in constitutional and public law, with particular emphasis on state constitutionalism, the intersection of poverty and constitutional doctrine, and the constitutional regulation of punishment and economic sanctions. His work on the history and original meaning of the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines clause has been widely cited in state and federal courts. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, and the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, among others.

Professor McLean is also an experienced appellate litigator. Before joining the Richardson Law faculty, he served as First Deputy Solicitor General in the office of the Hawaiʻi Attorney General. In that role, his work focused on constitutional litigation in matters involving public health, public safety, and consumer protection. He also practiced law at firms in Honolulu and New York.

Professor McLean graduated magna cum laude from Yale College and earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an essays editor of the Yale Law Journal. After graduating from law school, Professor McLean clerked for Judge Richard Clifton on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In 2020, he was appointed to serve a three-year term as a lawyer delegate to the Judicial Conference of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi.

Publications

• The Law of Minimum Entitlements, 59 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform (forthcoming 2026).
• Financial Hardship and the Excessive Fines Clause: Assessing the Severity of Property Forfeitures After Timbs, 129 Yale L.J. Forum 430 (2020) (with Beth A. Colgan). SSRN
• Livelihood, Ability to Pay, and the Original Meaning of the Excessive Fines Clause, 40 Hastings Const. L.Q. 833 (2013). SSRN
• Comment, Intersystemic Statutory Interpretation in Transnational Litigation, 122 Yale L.J. 303 (2012). SSRN
• Note, Cross-National Patterns in FCPA Enforcement, 121 Yale L.J. 1970 (2012). SSRN