Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is the Aronson Family Professor of Criminal Justice and a University Professor at New York University School of Law, positions he has held since joining the clinical faculty in 1998. He earned a Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1985. As founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) since 1989, Stevenson has dedicated his career to criminal justice reform, providing legal representation to death row prisoners, juvenile offenders, the wrongly convicted, and those denied fair trials due to poverty or racial bias. His work at EJI has led to the exoneration or relief for numerous clients, including saving over 130 individuals from execution on death row.

Stevenson has argued and prevailed in several landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, including Miller v. Alabama (2012), which prohibited mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles, resulting in the resentencing or release of more than 1,000 people. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014), which won the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Nonfiction. Stevenson has also produced widely used manuals on capital case litigation and published scholarly articles, such as in the New York University Law Review (2002). His honors include the National Humanities Medal, MacArthur Fellowship ("Genius Grant"), the 2024 Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize in Social Science and Public Policy, and the 2025 Stockholm Prize in Criminology. At NYU Law, he teaches courses on Racial Justice and the Law and Eighth Amendment Challenges, and through EJI, he established the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum, addressing America's history of racial terror lynching and enslavement. Stevenson's scholarship and advocacy have profoundly influenced criminal justice policy, constitutional law, and public discourse on race and equality.