Dear NYLS Community,
We are pleased to announce that Justin Murray has been appointed as a Professor of Law with tenure after a vote by the tenured faculty and approval by our Board of Trustees. Please join us in congratulating him. Professor Murrary is a deeply valued member of our faculty and NYLS is fortunate he will be a part of our community for many years to come.
Professor Murray joined NYLS in 2019. He teaches or has taught criminal law, criminal procedure, constitutional law, and race, bias, and advocacy. He also co-directs NYLS’s Criminal Justice Institute. He is a prolific scholar, and his published writings and scholarship focus on prosecutorial institutions and decision making, and on strategies for preventing and penalizing illegal conduct on the part of prosecutors and other criminal justice actors. His academic work has been published in a number of law journals, including the Harvard Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Washington University Law Review, and the Fordham Law Review. His scholarship has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and by judges on other courts, and he received the Otto Walter Award for best article by a full-time faculty member from the NYLS faculty for his 2021 article, “Policing Procedural Error in the Lower Criminal Courts.”
Professor Murray is also a leader in the wider legal higher education community. He has served as Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Criminal Procedure Section and remains a member of the Section’s executive committee. He is a Special Editor for the Journal of Legal Education, a contributing editor for Crimprofs Blog, a member of the Advisory Board for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books, and a member of the planning committee for the Decarceration Law Professors group, among other institutional and service roles.
Professor Murray began his career as a clerk on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. After that, he spent four years as an appellate lawyer at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, followed by a year at the Consumer Fraud Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. He then left legal practice to serve as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he taught legal research and writing, before joining NYLS’s faculty. He holds a J.D. magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, and A.B., magna cum laude from Harvard University. See his full bio.
Please join us in congratulating Professor Murray on this well-earned appointment and we look forward to many years of meaningful scholarship and instruction.
Dean Anthony W. Crowell
Dean of Faculty William P. LaPiana
Senior Associate Dean Matt Gewolb
Professor Ann F. Thomas
Chair, Faculty Committee on Promotion and Tenure