Douglas Colbert

Professor of Law

Phone: (410) 706-0683 Fax: 410-706-5856 Email: dcolbert@law.umaryland.edu Office: 344

AB, 1968, SUNY at Buffalo
JD, 1972, Rutgers (Newark) Law School

Courses: Criminal Law; Criminal Law Seminar: Race and Criminal Justice System; Criminal Procedure II; Legal Profession

Biography Publications

Biography

Professor Colbert joined the faculty in 1994 after directing the criminal justice clinic and teaching civil rights at Hofstra Law School and visiting at Northeastern and Utah Law Schools. In addition to teaching the Access to Justice criminal defense clinic, Professor Colbert also teaches Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Evidence, and Race and Criminal Justice seminar. He has written extensively about indigents right to counsel, bail reform, the Thirteenth Amendment, race discrimination in jury selection, affirmative action, police misconduct, politically sensitive trials, and legal scholarship. Professor Colbert was the lead counsel in the Napanoch prison rebellion and represents plaintiffs in civil rights litigation. Prior to entering teaching, he was a senior trial attorney in the criminal defense division of the NYC Legal Aid Society. Professor Colberts recent scholarly activities have focused on reforming states pretrial release systems and guaranteeing counsel at the bail stage. He founded and directed the Lawyers at Bail Project, which represented 4,000 indigent defendants at bail hearings. Professor Colbert regularly contributes opinion articles and engages in public education about many criminal justice issues. Currently, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Public Justice Center and the Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys Association. He is a past chair of the Maryland State Bar Associations Section on Correctional Reform.

Publications

Book Chapters

Its Not Funny: Creating a Professional Culture of Pro Bono Commitment, in Vulnerable Populations, Economic Realities (2010). [Full Text]

Articles

A Butterfly in COVID: Structural Racism and Baltimore's Pretrial Legal System, Maryland Law Review (forthcoming 2022) (with Colin Starger).

"With a Little Help from My Friends": Counsel at Bail and Enhanced Pretrial Justice Becomes the New Reality, 55 Wake Forest Law Review 795 (2020).

Prosecuting Baltimore Police Officers, 16 University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender & Class 185 (2016). [Full Text]

The Maryland Access to Justice Story: Indigent Defendants' Right to Counsel at First Appearance, 15 University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class 1 (2015). [Full Text]

Clinical Professors' Professional Responsibility: Preparing Law Students to Embrace Pro Bono, 18 Georgetown Journal of Poverty Law & Policy 309 (2011). [Full Text]

Prosecution Without Representation, 59 Buffalo Law Review 333 (2011). [Full Text]

Professional Responsibility in Crisis, 51 Howard Law Journal 677 (2008). [Full Text]

Coming Soon to a Court Near You--Convicting the Unrepresented at the Bail Stage: An Autopsy of a High Court's Sua Sponte Rejection of Indigent Defendants' Right to Counsel, 36 Seton Hall Law Review 653 (2006). [Full Text]

Connecting Theory and Reality: Teaching Gideon and Indigent Defendants' Non-Right to Counsel at Bail, 4 Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 1 (2006). [Full Text]

Broadening Scholarship: Embracing Law Reform and Justice, 52 Journal of Legal Education 540 (2003). [Full Text]

Do Attorneys Really Matter? The Empirical and Legal Case for the Right to Counsel at Bail, 23 Cardozo Law Review 1721 (2002) (with others). [Full Text]

Thirty-Five Years After Gideon: The Illusory Right to Counsel at Bail Proceedings, 1998 University of Illinois Law Review 1. [Full Text]

Ethical Decisionmaking and Ethics Instruction in Clinical Law Practice, 3 Clinical Law Review 109 (1996) (with others). [Full Text]

Affirming the Thirteenth Amendment, 1995 Annual Survey of American Law 403. [Full Text]

Liberating the Thirteenth Amendment, 30 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 1 (1995) [Full Text]

Bifurcation of Civil Rights Defendants: Undermining Monell in Police Brutality Cases, 44 Hastings Law Journal 499 (1993). [Full Text]

Challenging the Challenge: Thirteenth Amendment as a Prohibition Against the Racial Use of Peremptory Challenges, 76 Cornell Law Review 1 (1990). [Full Text]

The Motion in Limine in Politically Sensitive Cases: Silencing the Defendant at Trial, 39 Stanford Law Review 1271 (1987). [Full Text]

The Motion in Limine: Trial Without Jury; A Government's Weapon Against the Sanctuary Movement, 15 Hofstra Law Review 5 (1986). [Full Text]

Douglas Colbert

Professor of Law

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