Biography of Marvin Krislov

Marvin Krislov
Vice President and General Counsel
University of Michigan

Marvin Krislov is the vice president and general counsel of the University of Michigan.  In this position, he is responsible for the University’s legal affairs, including establishing goals and strategies; serving as senior legal counsel to the Board of Regents, the University administration, and units, including the health systems; and supervising the professional staff and outside counsel required to carry out these activities. Mr. Krislov led the University’s legal defense of its admission policies, resulting in the 2003 Supreme Court decision of the importance of student body diversity.  He was recognized by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for his “counsel and leadership” for his work on the cases.  He co-chairs the presidential initiative on ethics in public life and has served on the athletics department’s transition committee.

Mr. Krislov received a B.A. degree, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1982.  A Rhodes Scholar, he studied at Oxford University’s Magdalen College, where he received an M.A. degree in modern history in 1985.  He served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and earned a doctor of laws degree from Yale Law School in 1988, and from 1988-89 worked as a law clerk for Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Prior to coming to the University of Michigan in November 1998, Mr. Krislov served as acting solicitor from 1997-1998 in the U.S. Department of Labor, managing more than 700 employees and an annual budget of $70 million, and deputy solicitor of national operations from 1996-1998. In those capacities, he served as primary legal advisor to the Secretary of Labor and supervised litigation, legal enforcement, regulation and policy activities.  Previously, he served as associate counsel in the Office of Counsel to the President.

As a former trial attorney in the Criminal Section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in 1989-93, Mr. Krislov prosecuted racial violence and police brutality cases in grand jury investigations and at trials throughout the country.  He teaches law at the University of Michigan Law School, and also teaches political science courses at the University. From 1982-83, Mr. Krislov sat on the New Haven, Connecticut Board of Aldermen.  He also taught law at George Washington University in 1991-93.

Mr. Krislov serves on the boards of the University Musical Society, the United Way of Washtenaw County and the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit.  He is married to Amy Ruth Sheon, a biomedical researcher.  They have two sons, Zachary, age 14, and Jesse, age 9, and a daughter, Evie Rose, age 6.