Nimmer is an American copyright scholar, practicing attorney, and legal author whose career has combined academic research, appellate-level litigation, and long-term stewardship of one of the most influential treatises in United States intellectual-property law. Nimmer is a senior lawyer at Irell & Manella LLP, where he practices in copyright and related intellectual-property litigation. His professional work has included appellate advocacy in federal courts, participation in major copyright disputes involving software,
digital distribution, and media industries, and advisory work on emerging questions at the intersection of copyright and technology. Earlier in his career, Nimmer served as an Assistant
United States Attorney in the
Criminal Division of the United States Attorney's Office,
Central District of California, where he handled federal criminal prosecutions. He subsequently clerked for
Judge Warren Ferguson of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, an experience that strongly shaped his later engagement with appellate copyright doctrine and statutory interpretation. He also serves as a Professor from Practice at
University of California, Los Angeles Law School and Distinguished Scholar at the
Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. In 2000, he was elected to the
American Law Institute. He has served as a guest professor at the
University of Haifa, Yeshiva University (
Cardozo Law School), the
University of Miami, and
Syracuse University. Nimmer’s academic profile is distinguished by the unusual depth of integration between scholarship and active legal practice. His teaching and writing frequently draw upon contemporary litigation, technological change, and evolving judicial interpretation of the
Copyright Act, particularly in areas such as fair use, secondary liability, statutory damages, and digital-rights enforcement. Nimmer also served as the Chairman on the Committee on Intellectual Properties Litigation for the
American Bar Association from 1989-1992.
Stewardship of Nimmer on Copyright Nimmer is best known as the long-standing author of
Nimmer on Copyright, the leading treatise on
United States copyright law. He assumed responsibility for the treatise in the mid-1980s and has overseen continuous updates and revisions from the late 1980s through the present, at which time it spans 11 volumes. Under his direction, the treatise has expanded substantially in scope to address the transformation of
copyright law brought about by software markets, networked distribution, and the enactment and interpretation of blockbuster amendments including the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Music Modernization ACt. == Scholarly writing ==