Professor Mayson joins the American Law Institute, an organization of leading lawyers, judges, and scholars dedicated to improving the law.
Professor of Law Sandra Mayson has been elected a member of the American Law Institute (ALI), one of the nation’s leading organizations dedicated to improving and clarifying the law. ALI members contribute their expertise to the Institute’s work through its Restatements, Principles, and Model Codes—resources relied upon by courts, legislators, and practitioners across the country.
Mayson was selected through a confidential nomination and election process in recognition of her professional achievements and contributions to the legal profession. She joins a distinguished class of lawyers, judges, and scholars elected to the Institute this year.
Dean and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law Sophia Z. Lee described Mayson as “one of the leading criminal law voices nationally, with impeccable standing in both the academic community and among courts, policymakers, and practitioners,” noting that she is an exceptional addition to the ALI.
Mayson’s scholarship combines criminal law, constitutional law, and legal theory to examine how legal systems regulate risk and preventive restraint. Her work is informed by her early experience as a trial lawyer at Orleans Public Defenders, where she represented indigent clients in criminal proceedings and trained fellow public defenders on immigration-sensitive defense practice. As a scholar, Mayson has taken an interdisciplinary and mixed-methods approach, integrating data-driven analysis of legal institutions with consideration of the doctrinal and theoretical underpinnings of criminal law.
Last year, Mayson received the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation’s Legal History Article of the Year Prize for “Bail at the Founding,” co-written with Columbia Law School’s Kellen R. Funk and published in the Harvard Law Review. Drawing on extensive archival research in Philadelphia and New York, the article examines the history of bail practices in the Founding era and challenges common assumptions about the role of cash bail in American legal history.
Mayson also plays an active role in pretrial justice reform. She has served as Associate Reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s Pretrial Release & Detention Act, co-authored amicus briefs challenging aspects of money bail systems, and advises public and private stakeholders on pretrial reform efforts.
Election to the American Law Institute recognizes Mayson’s contributions to legal scholarship and public policy and provides an opportunity for her to contribute to the Institute’s ongoing work shaping the future of law.
See the full list of newly elected ALI members.
https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/18656-sandra-mayson-elected-to-american-law-institute
