About NICSA

Senator Joe Dunn (ret.) was a member of the California State Senate from 1998 to 2006. In the Legislature, he chaired key committees such as the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Housing Committee. He received international acclaim as chair of the Senate Investigation Committee into the 2001 California energy crisis, and subsequently as “The Man Who Cracked Enron” (California Lawyer Magazine). Prior to entering the Senate, he was a plaintiff’s lawyer in Orange County, working on mass tort cases surrounding child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Big Tobacco, nuclear radiation contamination, and products liability litigation of defective medical devices and pharmaceuticals. He joined the Newport Beach office of Robins Kaplan after law school, and then Robinson, Calcagnie, Robinson, also in Newport Beach, where he continued to focus on sexual abuse, products liability, and complex litigation until his election to the Senate. Following his two terms in the State Senate, Dunn served as CEO of both the California Medical Association and the State Bar of California. He is currently lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law, an institution he cofounded while in the Senate. At UCI Law, he helped launch the UCI Cybersecurity Policy and Research Institute, the Civil Justice Research Institute, the Cannabis Research Center and most recently, the overall artificial intelligence and the law effort at the law school.  He currently serves as a trustee for the UCI Foundation and serves on the board of several organizations fighting sexual abuse in society.  Senator Dunn received his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the Minnesota School of Law (1983) and his B.A. magna cum laude from the College of St. Thomas (1980).