Dehlia Umunna Appointed Clinical Professor Of Law At Harvard Law School

Dehlia Umunna has been appointed Clinical
Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She has
been a lecturer at HLS since 2007, and is Deputy
Director and Clinical Instructor at HLS’s Criminal
Justice Institute (CJI), in which she supervises
third-year law students in their representation of
adult and juvenile clients in criminal and juvenile
proceedings and arguments before
Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court and
Appeals court.

“Dehlia’s students revere her; her colleagues at
HLS and nationally look to her as an exemplary
advocate, teacher, and mentor,” said Martha
Minow, dean of Harvard Law School. “From her
unprecedented win record in criminal defense
trials, her deft leadership of the Criminal Justice
Institute day-to-day, and her superb coaching of
student moot court teams, her published
scholarship, to her numerous awards in
recognition of her outstanding work as a criminal
defense attorney, advisor, and teacher, Dehlia is
simply extraordinary, an inspiration to her
students and her clients in every way. It is a true
privilege to be her colleague.”

Prior to coming to Harvard Law School, Umunna
was a trial attorney with the D.C. Public Defender
Service and an adjunct professor of law and
Practitioner in Residence at the Washington
College of Law, American University. She currently
serves as a faculty member for Gideon’s Promise,
and is a frequent presenter at Public Defender
trainings across the country. She was a board
member of the District of Columbia Law Students
in Court Clinic and was a guest lecturer for
several years at the George Washington University
Law School.

She is the author of the article “Rethinking the
Neighborhood Watch: How Lessons from the
Nigerian Village Can Creatively Empower the
Community to Assist Poor, Single Mothers in
America,” published in the American University
Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law.
“I am blessed and honored to join Harvard Law
School’s remarkable faculty,” said Umunna. “I
relish this extraordinary opportunity to continue
work that I am truly passionate about, and I am
grateful for the deep interest and commitment of
the school to issues of criminal justice, mass
incarceration, indigent defense and social justice.”

Umunna received her law degree from the George
Washington University Law Center. She also holds
a Masters in Public Administration (MC) from the
Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a
B.A. in Communications from California State
University, San Bernardino.