Sharon Brett
- Associate Professor of Law
Contact Info
Personal Links
Biography —
Sharon Brett joined the KU Law faculty as an associate professor of law in 2024. Her scholarship focuses on structural, procedural and doctrinal impediments to systemic reform of government institutions, with a specific focus on the criminal legal system and policing. Brett’s work has appeared in the Harvard Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review, the Duke Law Journal Online and the U.C.L.A. Criminal Justice Law Review.
Immediately prior to joining the faculty at KU, Brett was the legal director at the ACLU of Kansas where she led complex civil rights litigation in Kansas state and federal courts. She has first chaired numerous trials and argued several appeals on cases regarding voting rights and redistricting, the Fourth Amendment, LGBTQ+ rights and more.
After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School, magna cum laude, Brett clerked for Judge John M. Facciola (ret.) on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She then joined the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. While there, Brett investigated and litigated large-scale police misconduct and prison conditions cases. She also wrote amicus briefs on behalf of the United States on a variety of civil rights issues. She then spent two years as a senior staff attorney with Harvard Law School's Criminal Justice Policy Program, conducting research and policy reform advocacy regarding fines and fees charged to criminal defendants.
Education —
Magna cum laude
With distinction
Teaching —
Civil Procedure, Evidence, Federal Courts, Social Justice Lawyering
Admitted
New York (2013), Kansas (2020), 10th Circuit Court of Appeals (2020), U.S. District Courts for Kansas (2020), Arizona (2015), Eastern District Missouri (2015), Eastern District Louisiana (2014), U.S. Virgin Islands (2013)
Clerkships
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge John M. Facciola (ret.), 2012-2013
Selected Publications —
Policing the State Police: System Reform within the “Fiction” of Ex parte Young, 59 Harv. C.R. & C.L. L. Rev. 175 (2024).
Reforming Monetary Sanctions, Reducing Police Violence, 4 U.C.L.A. Crim. Just. L. Rev. 17 (2020).
Court Culture and Criminal Law Reform (with Colin Doyle and Mitali Nagrecha), 69 Duke L. J. Online (Apr. 2020).
Selected Presentations —
Standing in the Dark (work in progress)
- Selected Presenter, Federal Courts Junior Scholars Conference, Cornell Law School (forthcoming April 2025)
- Selected Presenter, Northeastern University School of Law Junior Scholars Conference (February 2025, Boston, MA)
- Selected Presenter, New Voices in Civil Rights, AALS Civil Rights Section, AALS Conference (January 2025, San Francisco, CA)
- Selected Presenter, ABA/AALS Criminal Justice Section Works In Progress Virtual Conference (December 2024, online)
Invited Moderator, Bridging the Gap: State Constitutional Litigation, hosted by State Democracy Research Initiative and University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (forthcoming March 2025, Philadelphia, PA).
Selected Presenter, Filling the Social Justice Gap: Lessons from Practitioners Turned Academics, Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) Annual Teaching Conference (September 2024, Boston, MA).
Invited Discussant, Public Law in the States Annual Conference, University of Wisconsin Law School State Democracy Research Initiative (May 2024, Madison, WI).
Invited Panelist, The Promise and Limits of State Constitutionalism, NYU Law Review Symposium/Brennan Center for Justice State Courts Project (Feb. 2024, New York, NY).