Michael Pinard

Francis & Harriet Iglehart Professor of Law
Faculty Director, Gibson-Banks Ctr for Race & the Law
Director, Clinical Law Program

Office

331

Phone

(410) 706-4121

Fax

(410) 706-5856

Photo of Michael Pinard

Education

  • BA, 1990, Long Island University
  • JD, 1994, New York University

Affiliations

Michael Pinard is the Francis & Harriet Iglehart Professor of Law, faculty director of the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law, which launched in October 2023, and director of the Clinical Law Program.  Professor Pinard writes and teaches broadly about race, intersectionality, and the criminal legal system, including the criminalization of race (children, adults, and communities); policing; incarceration; criminal records; exclusionary school discipline of K-12 students; and the intersectional harms of the criminal and civil legal systems.

Professor Pinard currently teaches the Youth, Education, and Justice Clinic, in which he and his students represent children who have been pushed out of school through suspension, expulsion, and other means as well as individuals serving life sentences for offenses that occurred when they were children or young adults. The clinic also works on policy and legislative initiatives aimed to keep children in school (and away from the youth/criminal legal systems) and to provide (and broaden) meaningful opportunities for release from incarceration.  In fall 2024, Professor Pinard will teach a new course, Race and Decarceration in Maryland.  Professor Pinard has also taught the Reentry Clinic; Law and Social Change (1L elective); Policing, Communities, and the Law; the Permanence of Criminal Records; Freddie Gray’s Baltimore: Past, Present and Moving Forward (with colleagues); Criminal Procedure; Criminal Procedure II; Legal Profession; the Criminal Defense Clinic; and Comparative Criminal Process (Aberdeen, Scotland).

Professor Pinard has worked to improve the criminal legal system nationally and locally through legislative and policy advocacy, scholarship, opinion pieces, and participation in various working and advisory groups.  He serves on the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative, a partnership led by Office of the Attorney General and Office of the Public Defender focused on reducing incarceration in Maryland.  Recently, he served on the transition team for Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown as co-lead of the Public Safety Team.

Professor Pinard has been active nationally in efforts to improve legal education. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Clinical Law Review. He has chaired the AALS Section on Civil Rights and co-chaired the AALS Section on Litigation, was president of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), has served the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education as co-chair of the Clinical Scholarship Committee and chair of the Nominations Committee, and has served the ABAs Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar as member of the Clinical Skills Committee.

 Professor Pinard currently serves as board chair of the Gault Center, as a commissioner with the Maryland Access to Justice Commission, and on the leadership council of the Public Justice Center. He has served as a board member of the Public Justice Center, an advisory committee member of the Maryland Reentry Partnership and the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and as chair of the Maryland State Bar Associations Legal Education and Bar Admissions Committee.

In 2013, Professor Pinard was elected to the American Law Institute.  In 2024, he was co-recipient of the Michael A. Olivas Award for Outstanding Leadership in Diversity and Mentoring in the Legal Academy by the Association of American Law Schools; in 2011, he was honored as a Champion of Change by the White House for his work on behalf of individuals with a criminal record; and in 2008, he received the Shanara Gilbert Award from the Clinical Section of the Association of American Law School as an emerging clinical law professor committed to teaching and achieving social justice.

Professor Pinard received his juris doctor from New York University School of Law. He was a staff attorney with the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and the Office of the Appellate Defender in New York City. From 1998 to 2000, he was a Robert M. Cover Clinical Teaching Fellow at Yale Law School. Prior to coming to Maryland in 2002, he was an assistant professor at St. John’s University Law School and a visiting associate professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. From 2008 to 2009, he was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law. In spring 2015, he was a scholar-in-residence at Columbia Law School.

Books

Garbage In, Gospel Out: How Data-Driven Policing Technologies Entrench Historic Racism and 'Tech-Wash' Bias in the Criminal Legal System (2021) (with others; for NACDL's Task Force on Predictive Policing).

Articles

Book Review, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books, Nov. 2021 (reviewing Justin Fenton, We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption (2021)). Abstract

Foreword: Reflecting on Our Turbulent Times, 28 Clinical Law Review 1 (2021) (with Phyllis Goldfarb & Randy Hertz). Abstract

Race Decriminalization and Criminal Legal System Reform, 95 N.Y.U. Law Review Online 119 (2020). Abstract

Teaching Justice-Connectivity, 80 Louisiana Law Review 95 (2019). Abstract

Not (Just) a Clinical Lawyer-Journal?, 26 Clinical Law Review 1 (2019) (with Phyllis Goldfarb and Randy Hertz).

President Obama's Criminal Record Legacy, Criminal Justice, Summer 2017, at 27.

Holistic Suffering: Freddie Gray in Context, 16 University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender & Class 145 (2016). Abstract

Poor, Black and "Wanted": Criminal Justice in Ferguson and Baltimore, 58 Howard Law Journal 857 (2015). Abstract

Criminal Records, Race and Redemption, 16 N.Y.U. Journal of Legislation & Public Policy 963 (2013). Abstract

Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions: Confronting Issues of Race and Dignity, 85 N.Y.U. Law Review 457 (2010). Abstract

Reflections and Perspectives on Reentry and Collateral Consequences, 100 Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 1213 (2010). Abstract

A Reentry-Centered Vision of Criminal Justice, 20 Federal Sentencing Reporter 103 (2007). Abstract

An Integrated Perspective of the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions and the Reentry of Formerly Incarcerated Individuals, 86 Boston University Law Review 623 (2006). Abstract

Offender Reentry and the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions: An Introduction, 20 N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change 585 (2006) (with Anthony C. Thompson).

The Logistical and Ethical Difficulties of Informing Juveniles about the Collateral Consequences of Adjudications, 6 Nevada Law Journal 1111 (2006). Abstract

Broadening the Holistic Mindset: Incorporating Collateral Consequences and Reentry into Criminal Defense Lawyering, 31 Fordham Urban Law Journal 1067 (2004). Abstract

A Brief Reflection on the Multiple Identities and Roles of the Twenty-First Century Clinician, 4 University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class 285 (2004). Abstract

From the Classroom to the Courtroom: Reassessing Fourth Amendment Standards in Public School Searches Involving Law Enforcement Authorities, 45 Arizona Law Review 1067 (2003).

Limitations on Judicial Activism in Criminal Trials, 33 Connecticut Law Review 243 (2000).