Professor of Law
University of Virginia

Rachel Harmon is the Harrison Robertson professor of law and director of the Center for Criminal Justice at the University of Virginia Law School. Her research focuses on policing and the law, and her 2021 casebook, The Law of the Police, is the first book to explore the wide-ranging law that governs police encounters in the United States. Harmon moved to academia in 2006 after eight years as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she investigated and prosecuted civil rights crimes nationwide. Before attending Yale Law School, Harmon received two master’s degrees with distinction from the London School of Economics as a Marshall Scholar. After law school, she clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court.

• Harmon nomination packet