Martin L. Levine
Biography
Martin L. Levine serves as the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at the University of Southern California, and is also the UPS Foundation Chair in Law, and Gerontology, and Professor of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, with joint appointments in the schools of Law, Gerontology, and Medicine. His book, "Age Discrimination and the Mandatory Retirement Controversy," (John Hopkins University Press) received the Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award, and he has edited books on "Law and Aging: International Variations," "Law and Psychology," and "Legal Education." He was selected by the American Council on Education and Change Magazine for their list of 100 Outstanding Developing Leaders in American Higher Education. His teaching fields include criminal law and procedure, and mediation and alternative dispute resolution. He also works as a mediator.
Professor Levine is a Research Psychoanalyst with California state registration, and a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytic Association. A teacher of psychoanalysis and law at USC and Columbia, he was one of the first non-physicians in California to receive full training as a psychoanalyst. He has been chair of the Association of American Law Schools section on psychiatry and law, and national president of the Council for the Advancement of Psychoanalytic Education.
He was a founder, president, and then honorary president of the National Senior Citizens Law Center, and was a national delegate to the White House Conference on Aging. He has been chair of the Association of American Law Schools section on aging and law, chaired the International Conference on Justice and the Elderly in Jerusalem, and co-taught at Oxford with Ronald Dworkin on ethical and legal issues of aging and dying. His books, articles and professional work have helped define the new field of law and aging, and he has lectured in this field in Scotland, England, Israel, Italy, Japan, and Canada.
For a decade, Professor Levine was director with Joseph Raz of annual Oxford–USC colloquia for senior faculty in philosophy and law, meeting at All Souls, Balliol, Brasenose and St. John's Colleges, Oxford. He was founder and first executive director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty, and its president and chairman of the board. This center was honored by the Community Relations Conference of Southern California as outstanding program. He was general counsel to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, the first person to be deputy Federal Public Defender for the Central District of California, and also served as chairman of the board of the University of San Fernando Valley. He chaired one of the first national conferences on law school curriculum reform and clinical education, and was the first law clerk in Washington for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
At USC, Professor Levine was the founding chair of the University Council, and later the President's Advisory Council, for which he received a presidential Award for Outstanding Service. A founding officer of the Faculty Senate and also its last president, he was active in establishing the Academic Senate, under which he was the first President of the Faculty. He has been faculty observer to USC Board of Trustees committees on academic affairs, development, and public affairs, and chaired the faculty committee which developed USC's centennial academic development plan for the $307 million Century II Campaign. He has also served as Vice Provost for Minority Affairs.
He has been principal investigator of approximately $9 million in contracts and grants, involved in raising about $24 million in gifts, and has over 60 articles, chapters, reviews, reports and books. In addition to his visiting teaching at Oxford and Columbia, he has taught undergraduate courses both at USC and at University of California, San Diego.
As Vice Provost, he serves as the senior executive officer responsible to the Provost for USC's 4300 faculty. He received the B.A. summa cum laude with distinction in sociology from Brandeis University where he was Louis D. Brandeis Honorary Scholar in social science; his J.D. with honors is from Yale Law School, where he won the Peres Prize for best student article, and he is a graduate of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, where he was Liddell Fellow. He also received the honorary degree LL.D. from the University of San Fernando Valley, and is a member of the honorary societies Phi Beta Kappa, the Order of the Coif, Phi Kappa Phi, Golden Key, and Phi Beta Delta, and was awarded Woodrow Wilson, Fullbright, Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility, and Institute for American Freedom fellowships.
His wife, Dr. Martha Lyon-Levine, is a psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills, and a consultant to independant schools. She was a member of the full-time faculty of the USC psychiatry department and was dean of the College of the Center for Early Education. Their son, Ben, graduated from Oxford and is completing his second master's degree in London. His play, "The Best Imitation of Myself," has been performed on both coasts.