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Benjamin Levin

Professor of Law

Benjamin Levin studies criminal law and legal theory. His current research examines criminal justice reform and its relationship to other movements for social and economic change. His scholarship has appeared in journals including the Columbia Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the California Law Review Online, and the Harvard Law Review Forum. His writing for general audiences has appeared in Salon, Slate, and Time. He also serves as the Chair-Elect of the AALS Section on Criminal Law and as a Senior Contributor for OnLabor.org.

At Washington University, Levin teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure: Adjudication, and Criminal Justice Reform Movements. In 2024, he received the David M. Becker Professor of the Year Award. Before joining the WashU faculty, he taught at the University of Colorado Law School, where he received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2022 and 2018, the Outstanding New Faculty Member Award in 2018, and the Gordon J. Gamm Justice Award in 2020. Prior to joining the Colorado Law faculty, Levin served as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he received the Harvard Law School Student Government Teaching and Advising Award.

Before entering academia, Levin worked at the civil rights firm of Neufeld Scheck and Brustin, LLP, where he focused on cases involving police and prosecutorial misconduct. He also clerked for Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Lawrence E. Kahn of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. Levin earned his B.A., with distinction, from Yale University and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he received the Irving Oberman Memorial Award for law and social change.

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