Lawyer, Professor, Clinician, Criminal Reform Advocate

My Philosophy

I believe that in order to enact meaningful change, you must have a vision of justice.

And I have a very specific vision of what “justice” means. For me, justice is centered around the concepts of proportionality, equality, and community.

In this conception, “proportionality” does not refer to the biblical eye for an eye. Instead, it speaks to tempering the balance between transgression and reaction. It means taking deep stock of the preciousness of liberty, and weighing its finite nature against any benefit that could be achieved through a legal response.

Equality is simply about treating everyone as equally before the law as is possible. In America (and throughout much of the colonized and post-colonial world) this is primarily a concern about race. But it is also a concern about class. And a concern about power and how it’s distributed and wielded.

The last concept — community — is about who is on the inside and who is on the outside. And for me, there is no outside. So when we talk about goals like protecting the community, fostering the community, providing services to the community, we should be talking about everyone in the community and everyone who will one day return to the community. There is no us (law abiding citizens) versus them (transgressors); there is only us (people for whom care is required).

I dream of a criminal legal system where we acknowledge and take into account that transgressors remain part of the community; where disparities based on race, class, and power are erased; and where we more highly value the liberty of others, and act accordingly.

So this is my work. And my approaches to it are many.

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Law Teaching

I believe that some of us will effect a few big positive changes in the world before we leave it, and others of us will effect many small positive changes. But what all of us can do is to effect constant positive change. And my way of doing this is through helping to build better lawyers.

Legal education is extraordinary flawed. It can — and should — be better. Much better. And the only people who can make it better are law professors and administrators.

Although I’m an excellent teacher, I didn’t choose to teach because I think that no one could do it better than me. Instead, I chose to teach because I think that not enough law professors do it like me.

We have to talk about race. We have to talk about class and the aims of capitalism. We have to talk about how the law distributes and codifies power. We have to talk about who wins and who loses and why that happens.

The law is not a collection of rules. Instead, it is a collection of decisions. And all decisions have decisionmakers. We have to talk about that. Not just sometimes, but all of the time.

And we have to talk to future lawyers about who they want to be and how they want to fit into — or upend — the systems that currently exist.

We do a fine job of teaching students the hows, but we also need to give them a framework for thinking about the whys.

Scholarship

I write about criminal law and procedure.

I write about administrative fixes that could increase substantive justice.

I write about prosecutorial discretion and how to curtail it.

I write about the othering of legal transgressors.

I write about risk tolerance and the centering of fear.

And I write about any other topic in the criminal legal sphere that I think might help people think a little differently about policies or paradigms.

  • The Systemic Justice Project

    I created and direct the Systemic Justice Project clinic at Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia, PA.

  • Criminal Law Scholarship

    I write scholarly pieces on topics in criminal law and procedure.

  • Speaking Engagements

    I love nothing more than to talk about criminal law, race and the law (including CRT), and the legal academy and legal teaching.

  • Diversity, Equity & Belonging

    I teach people how to have conversations about diversity and then I facilitate those conversations and help turn ideas into outcomes.

  • Charitable Activity

    I advise and/or sit on the Boards of organizations that do work that I care about.

  • POC Pipeline

    If you’re a BIPOC who might be interested in entering the legal academy, please reach out. I provide free consulting on all aspects of the hiring process.