Chaim Saiman
Professor of Law
Chair in Jewish Law
Biography
Chaim Saiman is a scholar of Jewish law, insurance law and private law and published Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law with Princeton University Press. Saiman has served as the Gruss Visiting Professor of Talmudic Law at both Harvard Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a visiting fellow at Princeton University and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, Bar-Ilan, Hebrew University, IDC and Pepperdine University faculties of law. Saiman sits as a rabbinical court judge (dayyan) with the Beth Din of America and serves as an expert witness in insurance law and Jewish law in federal court.
Saiman received his BS from Georgia State University and his JD from Columbia University School of Law. He also studied for a number of years at Yeshivat Har-Etzion (Gush) and Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh in Israel. Prior to joining the faculty at Villanova, he was an Olin Fellow at Harvard Law School a Golieb Fellow at NYU Law School, a law clerk to Judge Michael McConnell on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and worked as a corporate associate with the firm Cleary Gottlieb in New York. At Villanova, Saiman teaches contracts, insurance law, insurance coverage disputes, Jewish law and arbitration.
Practice Experience
- Judicial Clerk to Michael McConnell, United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)
- Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton (New York)
- Joined the faculty in 2006
Recent Publications
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Joinder and Necessary Parties, Article, Journal of the Beth Din of America, July (3rd Quarter/Summer) 2024
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Formalism in Jewish Law, Book Chapter, Oxford U. Press, April (2nd Quarter/Spring) 2024
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Keeping Kosher in the Age of AI , Magazine or Trade Publication Article, Mosiac Magazine, March 2024
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Is Insurance a Just Contract or Just a Contract?, Article, Maryland Law Review, March 2024
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Materialism and the Rise of "modern, Orthodoxy", Article, Tradition, January (1st Quarter/Winter) 2024
Recent Presentations
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'Haredi Research Group', Arbitrating Pluralism, online. October 2024
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'Center for Political Theology', Respondent to "Yeshayahu Leibowitz and the Production of Disinterested Judaism", Villanova U, September 2024
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'Jewish Law Association ', Deflecting the Angle of Deflection , Harvard Law School/ Jewish Law Association, Cambridge, MA. August 2024
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'Center for Study of Law and Religion', Respondent to Judith Hahn, "Sacraments of the Law", Emory Law School , July 2024
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'17th International Contracts Conference', Interpreting Religious Language in Secular Contracts, Bristol, UK. June 2024
Office: Rm 339, John F. Scarpa Hall
Phone: 610-519-3296
Courses and Seminars
- Advanced Insurance Seminar
- Abitration: Law, Policy, and Procedure
- Commercial and Religious Arbitration
- Contracts
- Insurance Law
- Jewish Law Seminar
- Legislation
Education
- Columbia University School of Law, JD
- Georgia State University, BA
- Yeshivat Har Etzion
- Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavne