Professor Alison Siegler

Alison Siegler is a Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School and the Founding Director of the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic (FCJC), the nation’s first legal clinic devoted to reforming the federal criminal system. The FCJC combats mass incarceration and racial disparities in the federal system, pursues impact litigation, and defends indigent clients in federal district court in Chicago, in the Seventh Circuit, and before the United States Supreme Court.

Professor Siegler is running a Federal Bailwatching Project aimed at reducing pretrial jailing and has testified before Congress about bail reform. The FCJC’s groundbreaking racial discrimination litigation earned Professor Siegler the Seventh Circuit Bar Association’s Justice Stevens Award for Outstanding Public Service Work and earned the FCJC the 2020 Clinical Legal Education Association Award for Excellence.

Professor Siegler previously served as an attorney with the Federal Defender Program in Chicago, was a Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown Law Center’s Criminal Justice Clinic, and was a law clerk for US District Judge Robert W. Gettleman in Chicago. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale College, earned a JD from Yale Law School, and holds an LLM from Georgetown.