Alice Ristroph

Biography

Professor Alice Ristroph joined the Brooklyn Law School faculty in 2017, and was appointed to be the inaugural Les Fagen Professor of Law in June 2024. She teaches and writes in criminal law and procedure, constitutional law, and political theory, with particular emphasis on issues of violence and resistance. One strand of her work examines laws designed to regulate state violence, focusing especially on the ways that these laws distribute risks of physical harm. Her most recent works have examined ideas and ideologies, including those promulgated in the legal academy, that influence or sustain carceral practices. Her scholarship has appeared in Columbia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, Virginia Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and other journals. She is the author of a new criminal law textbook which will be published by CALI’s eLangdell Press in 2022. Professor Ristroph is a member of the American Law Institute. Before joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty, Professor Ristroph taught at Seton Hall and University of Utah. Before entering law teaching, she was a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City. She received her J.D. and Ph.D. (political theory) from Harvard University.