Background
Prior to joining the Florida Coastal School of Law faculty in 2007, Professor Pimentel headed the Rule of Law efforts in Southern Sudan for the United Nations mission there, and has led court reform projects in Bosnia and Romania as well. He spent four years as the Chief of Court Management at the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Netherlands. Most recently, he has been asked to go to Kathmandu to consult on the judiciary provisions being drafted for the new Nepali Constitution. Professor Pimentel has more than ten years' experience working inside the federal courts of the United States, in the trial courts, the appellate courts (both 5th and 9th circuits), and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts; he spent the 1997-98 year in Washington as a Supreme Court Fellow. He commenced his career in the judiciary clerking for Senior District Judge Martin Pence, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, in Honolulu, after two years of practice with the law firm Perkins Coie in Seattle.
Professor Pimentel is away from Florida Coastal for the 2010-11 academic year, as a Fulbright Scholar at University of Sarajevo, researching the impact of post-war judicial reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Education
- University of California, Berkeley / Harvard Law School (3rd year) J.D. (Berkeley), 1988
- University of California, Berkeley M.A. Economics, 1987
- Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah B.A. Economics, summa cum laude, 1984
Teaching and Scholarship
Professor Pimentel teaches Criminal Law, Torts, Remedies, Law and Economics, Comparative Law, and a seminar on International Rule of Law.
His research agenda focuses on international rule of law and post-conflict transitional justice focusing in particular on legal pluralism and the judiciaries of developing and post-war societies. He is interested in issues of judicial governance and policy, including judicial ethics and discipline, as well as court structure and administration, both domestic and international.
Publications
- Judicial Independence at the Crossroads: Grappling with Ideology and History in the New Nepali Constitution, 21 Ind. Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. ___; published simultaneously at 5 Indian J. Const. L. __ (forthcoming in 2011)
- Legal Pluralism in Post-colonial Africa: Linking Statutory and Customary Adjudication in Mozambique, 13 YALE HUMAN RTS. & DEV. L. J. ___ (forthcoming in 2011)
- Legal Pluralism and the Rule of Law: Can Indigenous Justice Survive? 32 HARV. INT'L REV. ___ (Summer 2010)
- Constitutional Concepts for the Rule of Law: A Vision for a Post-monarchy Judiciary in Nepal, 8 WASH. U. GLOBAL STUD. L. REV. ___ (forthcoming in 2010)
- Rule of Law Reform Without Cultural Imperialism? Reinforcing Customary Justice through Collateral Review in South Sudan 2 HAGUE J. ON RULE L. 1 (2010) (peer reviewed)
- The Reluctant Tattle-tale: Closing the Gap in Federal Judicial Discipline, 76 TENN. L. REV. 909 (2009)
- Reframing the Independence v. Accountability Debate: Defining Judicial Structure in Light of Judges’ Courage and Integrity, 57 CLEV. ST. L. REV. 1 (2009)
- Restructuring the Courts: In Search of Basic Principles for the Judiciary of Post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, 8 CHI. J. INT’L LAW 107 (2008)
- Technology in a War Crimes Tribunal: Recent Experience at the ICTY, 12 WM. & MARY BILL OF RTS. J. 715 (2004)
- Forfeiture Procedure in Federal Court: An Overview, 183 F.R.D. 1 (1999)
