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Northwestern Law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer has been elected to the American Law Institute (ALI), an esteemed group of judges, lawyers, and legal scholars dedicated to the development of the law.

Tuerkheimer is among 26 new members elected this year. She joins more than 10 Northwestern Law faculty already involved with the Institute, including Dean Daniel B. Rodriguez, who currently serves on the ALI Council, the organization’s governing body.  

Tuerkheimer’s scholarly work spans criminal law, evidence, and feminist legal theory, examining social issues where these disciplines converge. Her most recent book Flawed Convictions: “Shaken Baby Syndrome” and the Inertia of Injustice surveys the scientific, cultural, and legal history of shaken baby syndrome and highlights fundamental inadequacies in the criminal justice system’s response to science-dependent prosecution. Tuerkheimer also coauthored, with Kim Yuracko, Cynthia Bowman, and Laura Rosenbury, the casebook Feminist Jurisprudence: Cases and Materials, which applies feminist theory to pressing contemporary issues including violence, reproduction, and employment.

After earning her JD from Yale Law School, Tuerkheimer clerked for Alaska Supreme Court Justice Jay Rabinowitz and served for five years as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office, where she specialized in domestic violence prosecution.  Tuerkheimer teaches Criminal Law, Feminist Jurisprudence, and Evidence at Northwestern Law.

The American Law Institute, founded in 1923, is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and improve the law. ALI, through a rigorous internal peer review process, works on projects with topics that range from employment law to foreign relations law. 

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