Rachel Moran is an assistant professor and founder of the Criminal and Juvenile Defense Clinic at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. Before joining the St. Thomas faculty in 2018, Moran spent three years as a clinical fellow in the Criminal Defense Clinic at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, where she supervised student attorneys representing both children and adults accused of crimes.

Moran focuses her scholarship on issues pertaining to police accountability, policing reform, and public access to records of police misconduct. In 2019 she was named a Bellow Scholar, a biennial national recognition for clinical professors engaged in empirical research that has significant potential to improve the quality of justice. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Law Review, Villanova Law Review, and Buffalo Law Review, among others.

Moran attended law school at Chicago-Kent College of Law, where she graduated with High Honors. While in law school Moran won four moot court or mock trial competitions and four best advocate awards, including the national championship of the National Moot Court Competition, and was honored with the American College of Trial Lawyers Fulton Haight Award given to the national best advocate. Moran also served as an editor on the Chicago-Kent Law Review and a student attorney in the Criminal Defense Litigation Clinic.

After law school Moran worked at a private criminal defense firm, representing clients on trial for offenses ranging from misdemeanors to first-degree murder. She then became an assistant appellate defender with the Office of the Illinois State Appellate Defender. In that capacity she argued numerous criminal appeals in Illinois appellate courts and the Illinois Supreme Court. Moran helped spearhead the office’s constitutional challenges to the mandatory transfer of children to criminal court, as well as the severe sentencing schemes that resulted in hundreds of children in Illinois serving life or de facto life sentences.

While an appellate defender, Moran also served as an adjunct professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, teaching Trial Advocacy and Advanced Evidence, and coaching mock trial teams. She coached two national best advocates and the team that won the 2015 National Trial Competition championship.

Read Moran's scholarship on SSRN.