Professor Leah M. Litman

Leah Litman teaches and writes on constitutional law, federal courts, and federal sentencing at University of Michigan Law School. Her research examines unidentified and implicit values that are used to structure the legal system, the federal courts, and the legal profession.

Her recent work has appeared or will appear in the California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Texas Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and Northwestern Law Review, among other journals. Her writing for popular audiences has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Slate. In addition, she is one of the co-hosts and creators of Strict Scrutiny, a Crooked Media podcast about the U.S. Supreme Court, and a co-creator, together with Emily Prifogle, of Women Also Know Law, a tool to promote the work of women and non-binary academics.

Professor Litman previously was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where she received one of its inaugural Student Government Teaching and Advising Awards, and an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law, where she received the Professor of the Year Award in 2019. She also has been a visiting assistant professor in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School. In 2021, Michigan Law students awarded her the L.Hart Wright Teaching Award.

Professor Litman maintains an active pro bono practice. She was part of the litigation team in Garcia v. United States, one of the successful challenges to the rescission of the DACA program, for which the team was recognized as California Lawyers of the Year. In the Supreme Court, she was on the merits briefs in Hernandez v. Mesa and Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt.