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Jennifer M. Chacón


Issues Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Immigrant Rights

Law Professor, UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley School of Law

Jennifer M. Chacón is a Bruce Tyson Mitchell Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. She was previously a Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law, the UCLA School of Law and the Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Senior Associate Dean for Administration at the UC Irvine School of Law.

Chacón’s research focuses in the fields of immigration law, constitutional law and criminal law and procedure. Her research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation. She is a co-author of the 2017 casebook Immigration Law and Social Justice (Aspen Press) and of numerous articles, essays and book chapters on citizenship, immigration, border control and human trafficking. As an LPPI expert, Chacόn served as a faculty sponsor of the 2018 Latinx Communities, Race, and the Criminal Justice System Symposium, co-sponsored by LPPI. 

Professor Chacόn was an associate of the New York law firm of Davis Polk and Wardwell from 1999-2003, after clerking for the Honorable Sidney R. Thomas of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She began her career in law teaching at the UC Davis School of Law, where she received the Distinguished Teaching Award. She has also held appointments as a Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and at Harvard Law School.

Professor Chacón is a member of the American Law Institute. She serves on the executive committee of the American Association of Law School’s Section on Immigration, the Ninth Circuit Advisory Committee on Rules of Practice and Internal Operating Procedures, the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Foundation’s “Future of Latinos in the U.S.” project, and the University of Oxford Border Criminologies Advisory Group. She is also a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF). She holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and an A.B. in International Relations from Stanford University.