Rachel Barkow: Law Professor, Lawyer, U.S. Supreme Court Law Clerk
By Jeff Grant
We were honored to host Rachel Barkow, the Vice Dean and Charles Seligson Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, as our February 2025 Tuesday Night Speaker Series presenter.
Professor Barkow is one of the nation's leading scholars on criminal law administration, sentencing, and the regulatory state. She served as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. She is the author of Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration, which examines how politics distorts criminal justice policy and what can be done about it.
Her presentation addressed the structural incentives that drive over-incarceration, why evidence-based reforms struggle to gain traction in the political process, and what individuals in the white collar justice community can do to advocate for meaningful change.
