Patricia A. Cain is the Inez Mabie Distinguished Professor of Law at Santa Clara Law. She previously served as Vice Provost and Aliber Family Chair in Law at the University of Iowa.

She was a member of the faculty the University of Texas for 17 years before moving to the University of Iowa School of Law in 1991. She also held the H.O. Head Centennial Professor in Real Property Law at the University of Texas (1990-91). A member of the American Law Institute and the Order of Coif, she is a former co-president (with Jean Love) of the Society of American Law Teachers and a prior board member of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

She has published more than 50 law review articles in journals such the Iowa Law Review, the Southern California Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review and the Journal of Legal Education. She also has published several book chapters, treatises, and casebooks including Tax Planning for Unmarried Couples (Prentice Hall 1980); Property Law: Outlines (Casenotes 1997, 1999) (with Sheldon Kurtz); Rainbow Rights: The Role of Lawyers and Courts In the Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Movement (Westview Press 2000); and Sexuality Law (with Arthur S. Leonard)(Carolina Academic Press 2005).

She teaches and writes in the areas of federal taxation, wills and estates, feminist legal theory, property law, and gay and lesbian legal issues.