Professor Alice Ristroph Named to Les Fagen Professorship

Dean’s Research Scholar and Professor of Law Alice Ristroph has been named as the inaugural Les Fagen Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School.

The Les Fagen Professorship was recently created by Les Fagen, a longtime member of the adjunct faculty, through a generous endowed gift made in tribute to his father, Herman Fagen of the Class of 1942, and to honor Brooklyn Law School’s distinctive mission of educational excellence and access.

Ristroph, who joined the Law School’s faculty in 2017, is a leading theorist of criminal justice and constitutional law who has published more than three dozen articles, essays, and book chapters in many of the country’s leading venues, including the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. She is the author of a free, open-access textbook, Criminal Law: An Integrated Approach.

A gifted teacher and a dedicated mentor to students, Ristroph teaches and writes about criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. 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. Other articles have examined ideas and ideologies, including those promulgated in the legal academy, that influence or sustain carceral practices.

“Alice Ristroph is a careful and innovative scholar who has made a lasting mark in both criminal theory and constitutional law,” said President and Joseph Crea Dean David Meyer in announcing the appointment. “She is also a revered teacher and a respected leader on our faculty, both internally and in the broader academy. She richly deserves this recognition of her contributions and leadership.”

Ristroph is a former faculty fellow at Harvard’s Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics and has also been a visiting professor at Columbia, Fordham, Georgetown, and Harvard law schools.

In addition, Ristroph is a member of the American Law Institute. Before joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty, she taught at Seton Hall University School of Law and the University of Utah S. J. Quinney College of Law. Prior to entering academia, she was a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City. She received her J.D. and Ph.D. in political theory from Harvard University, where she also earned an undergraduate degree in government.

Ristroph’s appointment as the inaugural Les Fagen Professor, as well as the creation of the Les Fagen Professorship, will be celebrated at an investiture ceremony in October 2024.