UCLA Law Professor Sherod Thaxton, a renowned authority in a broad array of issues that directly impact the practice of public interest law, has become the faculty director of the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. He takes over from Professor Ingrid Eagly, who helped lead the law school’s public interest programming during a period of notable growth, success and increased popularity among students and outside partners.

Thaxton – who also holds joint appointments in UCLA’s Department of African American Studies and Department of Sociology – centers his scholarship on quantitative empirical legal studies, with a substantive focus on criminal law, criminal procedure and the sociology of crime and punishment. He teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Adjudication, Federal White Collar Crime, Capital Punishment and Introduction to Legal Analysis.

Before joining UCLA Law in 2013, Thaxton served as the Earl B. Dickerson Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School and as an attorney in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Office of the Federal Defender for the Eastern District of California. He holds a B.A. from UC Davis, an M.A. and Ph.D. from Emory University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

“I have devoted my career to practicing law in the public interest, so to assume the role of faculty director of the Epstein Program is a true highlight and even bigger honor,” Thaxton says. “I’m excited about working with our students, exploring new ways in which we can serve the broader community and building on the many accomplishments that Professor Eagly and everyone in UCLA Law’s incredible public interest law family have achieved in recent years.”