Ruth Coffey

Lecturer in Law (spring term) and Senior Research Scholar in Law
Education

M.Sc., Birkbeck College, University of London, 2008
M.A., B.A., University of Cambridge, Christ's College, 2000

Courses Taught
  • Comparative Criminal Law: Fair Trials
  • Comparative Sentencing: Theory and Practice
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Ruth Coffey is a Lecturer in Law and Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School. She is a criminal barrister and a door tenant at Red Lion Chambers in London. She was appointed Recorder (part-time judge in the criminal courts) in April 2018 and sits in the Crown Court on the Midland Circuit of England and Wales.

Coffey was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2004 and practiced criminal law in London before moving to the U.S. in 2015. She was previously a Research Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.

Before teaching at Harvard, Coffey was legal advisor on criminal law to the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and previously a government prosecutor for the UK’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Before that, she practiced as a criminal barrister, prosecuting and defending in the courts in and around London.

Coffey’s paper, “Fight, flight, freeze…or lie? Rethinking the principles of res gestae evidence in light of its revival,” was published in The International Journal of Evidence & Proof