Tiffany Yang joined the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law as an assistant professor in the 2023-2024 academic year.
Yang comes to Maryland Carey Law from Georgetown Law Center’s Appellate Litigation Clinic, where she trained students in appellate advocacy as they pursued civil rights, immigration, and habeas appeals before federal circuit courts. Previously, she was a senior attorney at the Advancement Project and a Skadden Fellow with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
“Professor Yang brings valuable experience as a highly impactful civil rights lawyer and innovative thinker in the civil procedure space,” said Maryland Carey Law Dean Renée McDonald Hutchins. “We are delighted to welcome such a vibrant change maker to the Maryland Carey Law community.”
Yang writes about procedural barriers to civil rights protections, the inequities of law, and social change. Her work, which situates the law within broader histories of community organizing and movement building, often interrogates these inquiries through the lens of prisoners’ rights litigation. Her scholarship has been published in the Boston College Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, and Washington Law Review.
As a civil rights attorney, Yang has litigated federal class actions and appeals to protect the rights of incarcerated people challenging their confinement, youth suffering constitutional violations in immigration detention, and workers combatting sex-based hostile work environments. Her work has been covered by publications like The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post.
Yang is eager to bring her experience to bear on her courses at Maryland Carey Law—Civil Procedure, Civil Rights Litigation, and Critical Race Theory. “I think the most powerful aspect of lawyering is empathy,” she said, “which is important not only in creating a client-attorney partnership but also in thinking about the law, its design, and its impact.”
Yang holds a BA from the University of Southern California and earned her law degree from Stanford Law School, where she received the Lisa M. Schnitzer Memorial Scholarship for her commitment to public interest lawyering. She also received a Hilmer Oehlmann, Jr. Award, two Thelton E. Henderson Prizes, and three Gerald Gunther Prizes for her doctrinal and clinical coursework.
Yang is no stranger to Baltimore. After law school, she clerked in the city for Judge Andre Davis ’78 of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (now retired). She is especially drawn to Maryland Carey Law because of the caring and connected community.
“I see my students as the next generation of legal thinkers—as future lawyers, organizers, judges, legislators,” said Yang. “It is in their leadership and creativity that we will continue to see powerful social change, and I am excited to support them on their journeys.”■