Professor Josh Bowers

Josh Bowers joined the law faculty in 2008 as an associate professor of law. His primary teaching and research interests are in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, legal theory and constitutional law. Bowers has written numerous articles, essays and book chapters on police and prosecutorial discretion, plea bargaining, misdemeanor enforcement and adjudication, drug courts, drug policy reform, life without parole, capital punishment, grand juries, pretrial release and the right to counsel. His work has been published in several books and journals, including the Columbia Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the UCLA Law Review and the Virginia Law Review. He is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Law Institute, the Board of the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Virginia Criminal Justice Conference and The Bronx Defenders 25th Anniversary Alumni Committee.  Previously, he served as Lead Reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s “Alternatives to Bail” Committee and was a founding member of the Police Civilian Review Board for the City of Charlottesville.

Bowers attended New York University School of Law, where he was a notes editor of the New York University Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif. After law school, he clerked for Judge Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He practiced law as an associate for Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason & Silberberg P.C., a boutique white-collar criminal defense firm, and also as a staff attorney for the Bronx Defenders, a community-based public defender organization. From 2006-08, he was a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.