Alexandra Natapoff

BA, cum laude, Yale University
JD, with distinction, Stanford Law School

Background

Professor Natapoff’s scholarship has won numerous awards, including the 2013 Law and Society Association Article Prize, two Outstanding Scholarship Awards from the AALS Criminal Justice Section, selection by the Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum, and Honorable Mention in the AALS Scholarly Papers Competition.  Her original work on criminal informants has made her a nationally-recognized expert: she has testified before Congress and her book Snitching won the 2010 ABA Silver Gavel Award Honorable Mention for Books.  Her current work focuses on misdemeanors and their powerful influence over the criminal system as a whole.  In 2012, she spent the summer working on the misdemeanor project at NYU as a Scholar in Residence.  Professor Natapoff was elected to the American Law Institute in 2007; she is quoted frequently by major media outlets.

Prior to joining the academy, Professor Natapoff served as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Baltimore, Maryland, and was the recipient of an Open Society Institute Community Fellowship.  She clerked for the Honorable David S. Tatel, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia and for the Honorable Paul L. Friedman, U.S. District Court, Washington, D.C.

Selected Scholarship

• Aggregation and Urban Misdemeanors, 40 Fordham Urb. L.J. (2013)
• Gideon Skepticism, 70 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. (2013)
• Misdemeanors, 85 S. Cal. L. Rev. 101 (2012) 
• Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice (NYU Press, 2009)
• Deregulating Guilt: The Information Culture of the Criminal System, 30 Cardozo L. Rev. 965 (2008)
• Underenforcement, 75 Fordham L. Rev 1715 (2006)
• Comment: Beyond Unreliable: How Snitches Contribute to Wrongful Convictions, 37 Golden Gate U. L. Rev. 107 (2006)
• Speechless: The Silencing of Criminal Defendants, 80 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1449 (2005)
• Snitching: The Institutional and Communal Consequences, 73 U. Cin. L. Rev. 645 (2004)
• Madisonian Multiculturalism, 45 Am. U. L. Rev. 751 (1996)
• Trouble in Paradise: Equal Protection and the Dilemma of Interminority Group Conflict, 47 Stan. L. Rev.1059 (1995)
• Comment: Intersectionality and Equality for Deaf Children from Non-English Speaking Homes, 24 J. Law & Educ. 271 (1995)
• The Year of Living Dangerously: State Courts Expand the Right to Education, 92 Ed. Law Rep. 755 (1994)

In the News

Professor Natapoff is frequently interviewed and/or quoted in major media outlets including The New Yorker, NPR, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, PBS, BET, ESPN, Huffington Post Live, New York Times, L.A. Times, Wall St. Journal, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, Philadelphia Inquirer, Dallas Morning News, and St. Petersburg Times. She has contributed opinion pieces to Slate, CNN Online, the San Francisco Chronicle, Reason Magazine, Prison Legal News, and the Daily Journal.

Public Service

• Testimony before the Committee on Public Safety, California Senate, Sacramento, CA, June 14, 2011
• Brief Amicus Curiae of the ACLU, Van de Kamp v. Goldstein (U.S. Sept. 4, 2008) (No. 07-854)
• Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Oversight Hearing on Law Enforcement Confidential Informant Practices, Washington, D.C. (July 19, 2007)
• Click here to watch Professor Natapoff's congressional testimony