Avlana K. Eisenberg

Avlana Eisenberg is Professor of Law and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar at the Boston College Law School. Her research focuses on the law and practice of criminal punishment, and she teaches courses in criminal law, criminal procedure, and prison law and policy. Eisenberg’s writing has appeared in the NYU Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Southern California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review (among other journals) and in popular media outlets such as The Atlantic and The Washington Post. Her work on the political economy of criminal law draws on original interviews with institutional stakeholders—including prosecutors, police, and corrections leaders—to investigate how the incentives of these stakeholders affect legal and policy reform. Eisenberg is an elected member of the American Law Institute.

Prior to joining the Boston College Law faculty in 2023, Eisenberg served as the Gary & Sallyn Pajcic Professor at Florida State University College of Law. She began her law teaching career at Harvard Law School, where she served as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law and as a fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. Before entering law teaching, Eisenberg was a litigation associate at Jenner & Block LLP in Washington, D.C. and a pro bono fellow at the D.C. Public Defender Service. She earned her law degree with distinction from Stanford Law School and is a member of the California State Bar.