Joseph Margulies
Clinical Professor of Law
Assistant Director, Roderick MacArthur Justice Center
Phone: (312) 503-0890
E-mail: j-margulies@law.northwestern.edu
Related Links: Roderick MacArthur Justice Center
Mr. Margulies is an attorney with the Roderick MacArthur Justice Center and a Clinical Professor of Law at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago. He received his B.A., with distinction, from Cornell University in 1982, and his J.D., cum laude, from Northwestern in 1988. After a clerkship with the Hon. William Hart of the Northern District of Illinois, Margulies joined the staff of the Texas Capital Resource Center, where he represented men and women on Texas’ death row. In 1994, Margulies entered private practice in Minneapolis, specializing in civil rights and capital defense. In 2002, he was the Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at Cornell University Law School, and in 2004, he joined the MacArthur Center. Margulies was Counsel of Record in Rasul v. Bush (2004), involving detentions at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station, and in Geren v. Omar & Munaf v. Geren (2008), involving detentions at Camp Cropper in Iraq. Presently he is counsel for abu Zubaydah, whose interrogation in 2002 prompted the Bush Administration to draft the “torture memos.” In June 2005, at the invitation of Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, Margulies testified at the first Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on detainee issues.
Margulies writes and lectures widely on civil liberties in the wake of September 11 and his commentaries have appeared in numerous publications, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the National Law Journal, the Miami Herald, the Christian Science Monitor, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and the Legal Times. He is also the author of the widely acclaimed book, Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (Simon and Schuster 2006). Among other accolades, Guantánamo was named one of the best books of 2006 by The Economist magazine. It received the prestigious Silver Gavel Award of 2007, given annually by the American Bar Association to the book that best promotes “the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.” It also won the Scribes Book Award of 2007, given annually by the American Society of Legal Writers to honor “the best work of legal scholarship published during the previous year.” Margulies has also won numerous awards for his work since 9/11.
Courses
Selected Publications
- Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (Simon & Schuster, 2006).
- Post-Conviction Challenges to Guideline Sentences in Practice Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines , 5th ed. (2004).
- Terrorizing Academia in 60 journal of legal education 433-471 (2011). (with Hope Metcalf)
- In the Moment of Greatest Calamity: Terrorism, Grief, and a Victim’s Quest for Justice in 33 polar: political and legal anthropology review 116-122 (2010).
- Why the Hubbub About Habeas?: A Post-Mortem on a Failed Policy in 35 journal of the national security forum 5089 (2009).
- A Prison Beyond The Law in 80 the virginia quarterly review 37 (Autumn 2004).
Education
- BA with distinction, Cornell University
- JD cum laude, Northwestern University
