Emeritus Dean; Professor of Law, Hon. G. Thomas and Anne G. Miller Chair in Advocacy; Director, Center for Public Interest Law and Advocacy

Following his graduation from Stanford Law School, Gary S. Gildin began his legal career in the litigation department of Sonnenschein Carlin Nath & Rosenthal (now Dentons) in Chicago, Illinois.  He is currently Professor of Law at Penn State’s Dickinson Law, where he is Dean Emeritus and holds the G. Thomas and Anne G. Miller Chair in Advocacy.   In addition to coordinating the law school’s trial advocacy curriculum for over four decades,  Gildin has continued to litigate civil and criminal cases in state and federal courts, including arguing before the United States Supreme Court. 

Gildin has authored more than 40 books, book chapters, articles, and continuing legal education publication chapters.  He analyzed the neuroscientific basis of and techniques for using story in the Third Edition of Trial Advocacy Basics published by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy 2021), in several of that Institute’s Collective Wisdom compilations, and in An Updated Practical Guide to Taking and Defending Depositions, 129 Dickinson Law Review 1 (2024).  Gildin also applied neuroscience to evaluate substantive doctrine in The Neuroscience of Qualified Immunity, 126 Dickinson Law Review 769 (2022).

Gildin has served on the faculty of over 100 continuing legal education programs on civil and criminal advocacy, including story-based trainings for the International Criminal Court Bar Association in The Hague; Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia; National Institute for Trial Advocacy; Defense Research Institute; American Civil Liberties Union; Minnesota Criminal Justice Institute; Public Defender Association of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Bar Institute; Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network Statewide Conference; and Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.