I was born in 1970 in Livonia, Michigan, to Don and Bea Crane. In 1971, our family moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where my parents worked with Greater Europe Mission to found the first non-denominational evangelical Protestant Bible college in the country. In 1980, our family moved to Paris, where my father assumed administrative responsibilities for the mission. I attended French schools for two years, before decamping for boarding school at the Black Forest Academy in West Germany for junior high and high school. I have vivid memories of life in a German gasthaus refurbished as a boy’s dorm in the quaint Black Forest, home of gnomes, fairies, and ruined castles.
In 1988, I enrolled at Wheaton College, where I met my wife Saara. After college, I earned a law degree at the University of Chicago, then went on to practice law in Miami and New York before becoming a law professor at Yeshiva University. In 2009, I joined the law faculty at the University of Michigan.
Having grown up overseas, I feel the currents of the world stirring in my blood. I have ongoing lectureships at Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Lisbon and Freie Universität Berlin, and frequently travel to Europe, Asia, and South America to present academic papers.
Saara and I are proud parents of three boys—Eliel, Pascal, and Lucian. We also have a menagerie of ill-behaved dogs and cats. We are known by our friends and family for our basenji, Lillie, who terrorized our household for fifteen dramatic years. When the time is right, we will be getting another basenji.
Spare time to pursue “other interests” is in short supply. I’m a big fan of European football (Tottenham Hotspur is my team) and play soccer whenever I can. Biking, hiking, skiing, and anything in the great outdoors are always high on my list.
Professor Dan Crane 