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Jocelyn Simonson, who joined the faculty in 2015 and writes and teaches about criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, and social change, has been named the Herman Badillo ’54 Professor of Law.  

The author of  (New Press, Aug. 2023), Simonson was ranked among the&²Ô²ú²õ±è;²Ô²¹³Ù¾±´Ç²Ô’s&²Ô²ú²õ±è;Top 100 Legal Scholars based on the impact of her legal scholarship, which explores the ways in which the public participates in the criminal process and examines how local authorities control policing and punishment. 

The professorship was created through the largest gift in the Law School’s history, and honors the legacy of Badillo, a trailblazer in New York City and national politics, who served as the country’s first Puerto Rican–born congressman and the city’s first Puerto Rican commissioner and borough president. He was also a member of the Law School’s Board of Trustees for 20 years.   

In a Q&A, Simonson discusses the new professorship, how the focus of her scholarship is expanding, her ongoing love of teaching, and what is next for Rethinking Justice, a program she conceived and then launched with her co-directors in the Center for Criminal Justice. 

Having grown up in New York City, you are especially familiar with the career of Herman Badillo&²Ô²ú²õ±è;’54, who was a fixture in New York City politics for four decades beginning in 1962. What does this professorship mean to you? 

Herman Badillo was groundbreaking in many ways. Since receiving this chair, I have learned more about him, including in the Attica prison uprising. There was a riot going on, and he went in and represented prisoners in the negotiations, and that was an incredible thing for a young politician to do. He also wrote books about Attica, and continued advocating for prisoners’ rights, which was brave and impressive. Growing up in New York and knowing his name, I also recognize that he was at times a complicated figure, and said some things that were controversial and even regrettable. Those complexities are part of his legacy, too. The world is complicated, though, and having his name attached to this professorship reflects that important reality.  

From 2022 through 2025, you served as the associate dean for research and scholarship, and you were recently named one of the nation’s top legal scholars. How does the professorship impact your scholarly work?  

I have spent the last decade writing about how groups are pushing back against criminalization, including in my book, Radical Acts of Justice, and I am still researching social movements in ways that I find exciting and invigorating. Currently, it is a scary time for marginalized communities, who are being repressed in stronger ways than they have in my lifetime, so I am starting to write about state repression and collective rights in the face of that repression. I am also examining the role of substantive criminal law and collective criminality that paint groups of people as criminal enterprises or criminal groups through statutes such as RICO and doctrines like conspiracy and use these as tools of repression. My work is also focused on looking back, historically, to think about social movements and collectives of people taking care of each other have been criminalized by the state. This chair allows me to spend time thinking carefully about those complicated issues and infuse those thoughts into my teaching. 

I also have two forthcoming pieces about legal scholarship itself: one is co-authored with  from the University of Chicago Law School and is about what sources we look to when we try to find out facts and the truth that we can study and measure; I also have a piece coming out with Professor , formerly at Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ and now at Cornell Law School, about the structure of law review articles and how normative legal scholarship holds the potential to play a part in larger change. Both pieces come from my love of legal scholarship and my hope that it can continue to be a source of inspiration and collective knowledge at a time when law is under attack on multiple fronts. 

Will you still be teaching as much with this professorship?  

Yes. I continue to teach criminal law to 1Ls, including two sections this semester, and some upper-level classes as well. It is a pleasure to come to the Law School every day and talk with 1Ls about what criminal law is and to be in touch with our emotions and place in the world while we're learning complex legal rules. Part of what is gratifying with 1Ls is that they are in their first semester and are excited about the law and open to thinking about the law in new ways because they have not yet learned how to think like a lawyer. So, we can sit there together and form professional identities, and a sense of what the law is, what it can be, what it should be, and in some cases whether a particular law or doctrine should even exist. Also, 1Ls are open to asking big, important questions and dedicated to learning what can seem tedious aspects of legal doctrine. We have fun discussions and there is a lot of good energy. 

One of the Center for Criminal Justice’s signature programs is Rethinking Justice, which brings formerly incarcerated people into first-year classrooms as teachers and experts who were directly impacted by the justice system. Any updates on it this year? 

We are going into all criminal law classrooms again this year with Rethinking Justice. There is a lot of energy and excitement around the program. I presented it at the American Association of Law School's Annual Meeting in New Orleans in January 2026 along with a former student and one of our formerly incarcerated partners. We are developing Rethinking Justice as a pedagogical model, and we are trying to make it something that can be replicated in other places and shared with other schools. We were also at a panel in New Orleans where professors from other schools who were not doing the same thing exactly but were also trying to incorporate directly impacted voices into their teaching. So, we are joining a larger network of legal educators who are thinking about this.