Laura Appleman

Laura I Appleman is the Van Winkle Melton Professor of Law and University Research Integrity Officer at Willamette University. She teaches Criminal Procedure I & II, Family Law, & Sentencing Law & Policy. Appleman is a national expert on the role of eugenics in the criminal system, carceral profits, and criminal juries.  Her scholarship has been widely published in books and law reviews, including Cambridge University Press, Harvard, Duke, Northwestern, Fordham, Boston College, Harvard Public Health, Wisconsin, and Washington & Lee.  She has also written in or been featured in the New York Times, Al-Jazeera America, Slate, the Boston Globe, Vanity Fair,The Verge, and Freakonomics Radio.

A graduate of the Yale Law School, Appleman clerked for Judge A. Wallace Tashima of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, CA. Before joining Willamette, she was a Manhattan criminal public appellate defender, arguing over 50 appeals in the New York appellate courts. Appleman serves on the Public Defenders of Marion County executive board and the Yale Law Alumni Steering Committee, and was elected to the American Law Institute in 2024.