University Law School Profs. Richard Bonnie, Rachel Harmon and Brandon Garrett were recently elected to the American Law Institute. The University now has 21 faculty members who are a part of the Institute. Harmon, Bonnie, and Garrett will continue to teach at the University while also working with the ALI.
The American Law Institute is a group of lawyers, judges and professors who work to clarify and improve the law, and members are chosen based on personal achievements and a desire to better the law. Dean of the School of Law Paul Mahoney said that being chosen for the ALI is a great accomplishment.
“Election to the ALI is a great honor and a mark of the respect in which the nominee is held by the legal profession,” Mahoney said.
Harmon said she was honored to be selected to be a part of the organization, and spoke to its rich history and its legal impact.
“The ALI is an extraordinary organization, which has worked for nearly 100 years to influence and improve the development of the law,” Harmon said. “I am honored to be given the opportunity through it to work with exceptional scholars and practitioners on the legal regulation of policing, the subject to which I have devoted my career.”
Harmon said she has been asked participate in a multi-year project on police investigations as an associate reporter. Her responsibilities will include working on principles regarding remedies and accountability. Harmon said that she expects her work to align with her teaching and research at the law school, which continue to be her primary focus.
Before coming to the University, Harmon attended MIT, where she majored in Civil Engineering. After attending MIT, she received two master’s degrees from the London School of Economics, where she was a Marshall Scholar, prior to receiving her law degree from the Yale Law School.
After she finished school, Harmon worked as a clerk for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court. Harmon then worked as a prosecutor for eight years, mostly in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
“I prosecuted hate crimes and cases involving deprivations of rights by public officials, including excessive force and sexual assaults,” Harmon said. “I came to U.Va. from the Justice Department in order to think more about how law influences the police and can best regulate policing.”
At the University, Harmon teaches a course on the Law of the Police, which investigates the interaction of federal, state and local laws that govern the police.
Garrett, who has been asked to work on the same project as Harmon, received his B.A. from Yale. He then went on to attend Columbia Law School, where he was a Kent Scholar. After law school, Garrett clerked for Judge Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit before working as an associate at Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin in New York City. Garrett is currently a visiting fellow at All Souls College in Oxford, England.
Garrett’s focus has been on wrongful convictions and DNA exonerations, and he has written a few books on the subject. His teaching and research interests include criminal procedure, wrongful convictions, habeas corpus, corporate crime, scientific evidence, civil rights, civil procedure and constitutional law.
Bonnie attended Johns Hopkins University for his undergraduate degree and received his law degree from the University’s Law School. Throughout his career, he has been heavily involved in public service and has served as associate director of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, among many other positions.
At the University, Bonnie is the Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law and director of the University’s Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy. Bonnie is also a public policy professor in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences. Within the ALI, Bonnie will be working on a restatement of the law on children and youth.
Richard Bonnie and Brandon Garrett could not be reached for comment.
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