SC Connecticut News

Fiona Doherty, a legal scholar and law professor who founded a Yale-based criminal justice clinic representing people in criminal cases in New Haven, has been appointed the Nathan Baker Clinical Professor of Law.

Doherty, a Yale Law School graduate who returned to the school as a clinical professor in 2011, is also the law school’s Deputy Dean for Experiential Education.

From 2005 to 2011, she was an Assistant Federal Defender in the Southern District of New York. Before that, she was Senior Counsel at Human Rights First, a New York-based nonprofit that works in the U.S. and abroad to promote respect for human rights and the rule of law. In that role, she worked to ensure that U.S. anti-terrorism measures incorporate human rights protections.

Doherty received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1999 and clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She then received a Bernstein Fellowship to work in Northern Ireland, where she focused on cases involving the targeting of defense lawyers during the conflict.

Doherty, who teaches courses in criminal law and sentencing, is the first female graduate of the law school to serve on its tenured clinical faculty. She has received the Yale Law Women Faculty Excellence Award and a teaching prize from the Office of the Provost. Her current scholarship, which focuses on supervised release, probation, and parole, has been cited by judges at all levels of the federal court system.

The Samuel Jacobs Criminal Justice Clinic, which Doherty founded, defends indigent clients accused of felony and misdemeanor offenses in New Haven. The clinic also takes on post-conviction matters including parole, resentencing, and clemency cases. Yale students handle all aspects of their clients’ cases under direct supervision of clinical faculty.

Before earning her J.D. at Yale Law School, Doherty received her B.A. from the University of Virginia where she was a Jefferson scholar.