Carol Sophie Bruch (born June 11, 1941)[1] is an American legal scholar and professor emerita of the law school at the University of California, Davis.

The program, established in 1950 under Ford Foundation support and still operating today, allows students to enter college after completing the 10th or 11th grade.

[8] As part of the experimental Great Books curriculum it shared with the University of Chicago, Shimer made extensive use of placement tests.

During law school, Bruch's honors included a Selected Professions Fellowship from the American Association of University Women[4] After graduation, she clerked for Justice William O. Douglas on the United States Supreme Court in the same term as Janet Meik Wright.

[16] Bruch has authored influential amicus briefs in two key California Supreme Court family law cases.

[16] Not limiting her academic work to the field of law, from 1995 to 2001, Bruch chaired an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in human development at UC Davis.

[2] Bruch is most widely known for her 2001 paper challenging the use of Richard A. Gardner's parental alienation syndrome (PAS) theory in child custody cases.

[28] In 1989, Bruch served as a member of the U.S. government's delegation to an Organization of American States diplomatic session that drafted Inter-American Conventions.

[2] In recognition of this, her amicus briefs and her extensive pro bono legislative work, she was granted the first "Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award" of the UC Davis Academic Senate in 1990.