Professor Leigh Goodmark, associate dean for research and faculty development, is profiled in "The feminist law professor who wants to stop arresting people for domestic violence" in The New Yorker on March 9, 2024.
She began her career representing battered women, convinced that she could protect them through policing, protective orders, prosecution, and prison. Now she argues that the legal system does not make abused women safer; instead, it makes their problems worse. She is still an advocate for domestic-violence victims, but she is also the country’s most prominent proponent of decriminalizing domestic violence—that is, addressing the problem without recourse to police or prosecutors.