Jonathan Ocko was an instructor of legal history at Duke Law for over thirty years. He specialized in teaching and research on Chinese law and legal history; and is given credit for helping the law school build a strong standing and good reputation in China and Hong Kong. Ocko was fluent in Mandarin and frequently traveled in China, often accompanying Duke Law administrators and other faculty.
Ocko completed a Ph.D. in Chinese history at Yale in 1975. He taught at Clark University and Wellesley College before joining the faculty of North Carolina State in 1977. The following year he studied law at Harvard and also taught Asian law there. In 1979 he was appointed to a part-time position at Duke Law. He became an adjunct associate professor at Duke Law in 1990, and a full professor at NC State in 1992. He became chair of the NC State history department in 2002. Ocko held fellowships from the National Humanities Center, the NEH, and the Rockefeller, Chiang Chingkuo, and Luce Foundations. He wrote widely on Chinese legal history and contemporary Chinese civil law. Ocko died in 2015.
Duke University, School of Law, Bulletin of Duke University School of Law [serial]
