Bernardine Dohrn

Dohrn, Bernardine

Clinical Associate Professor of Law

Phone: (312) 503-0396
E-mail: b-dohrn@law.northwestern.edu

| Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Bernardine Dohrn, Clinical Associate Professor of Law and immediate past director/founder of the Children and Family Justice Center, is a child advocate who teaches, lectures and write about children’s law, juvenile justice, the needs and rights of youth, and international human rights. With Steven A. Drizin, she is co-founder of the Center on the Wrongful Convictions of Youth. She works to abolish the sentence of life without possibility of parole for juveniles with the Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Children, and serves on the Board of the National Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. Dohrn is engaged in research, writing, policy and advocacy to reduce the incarceration and out-of-home care of youth.

Areas of Expertise

  • International Human Rights
  • Juvenile Justice

Courses

Selected Publications

  • Illinois: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Delinquency Proceedings (Children and Family Justice Center, Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University School of Law and the National Juvenile Defender Center, 2007). (with Cathryn Crawford, Thomas F. Geraghty, Marjorie B. Moss, and Patricia Puritz)
  • A Century of Juvenile Justice (University of Chicago Press, 2002). (with Margaret Rosenheim, Franklin Zimring, and David Tanenhaus )
  • Zero Tolerance: Resisting the Drive for Punishment in Our Schools (The New Press, 2001).
  • The Lesser Culpability of the Juvenile Offender: Trial in Adult Criminal Court, Incarceration with Adults, and Excessive Sanctions in What Is Right For Children?: The Competing Paradigms of Religion and Human Rights (Ashgate Publishing, 2009).
  • Foreword in Juvenile Justice in the Making vii-xii (Oxford University Press, 2004).
  • "Look Out Kid/It's Something You Did": Zero Tolerance for Children in Zero Tolerance: Resisting the Drive for Punishment in Our Schools 89-113 (The New Press, 2001).
View Additional publications

Education

  • BA with honors, University of Chicago
  • MA, University of Chicago
  • JD, University of Chicago

Prior Appointments

  • Director, Children and Family Justice Center, Northwestern School of Law
  • Associate Professor, University of Chicago
  • Adjunct Faculty, University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Criminal Justice
  • Visiting Law Faculty, Vrieje University, Amsterdam
  • Visiting Law Faculty, Leiden University, Netherlands