Marisol Orihuela is a clinical professor of law and director of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School. Her teaching and practice areas include criminal defense, civil commitment, immigration, and civil rights. She also directs the Mental Health Justice Clinic and co-teaches in the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. She received the Yale Law Women+ Faculty Excellence Award in 2018 and 2024.
Orihuela’s research interests lie at the intersection of criminal and immigration law, and criminal and mental health law. She has written on competency and detention during criminal proceedings, social movements and the law, and lawyering in immigrant rights, criminal defense, and on behalf of individuals with mental disabilities.
Prior to teaching, Orihuela served as a deputy federal public defender at the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Central District of California and was a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Orihuela graduated from Yale Law School in 2008. She clerked for the Honorable Rosemary Barkett of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Honorable Consuelo B. Marshall of the Central District of California.
