Liman Center Looks Back: Alexandra Harrington ’14

This is one in a series of profiles of former Senior Liman Fellows at the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law published in the 2020 Liman Center Reports.

Alexandra Harrington ’14
Senior Liman Fellow in Residence, 2018–2020
Associate Professor, University at Buffalo School of Law

Alexandra Harrington ’14 had little time between the end of her Liman Fellowship and the start of her next chapter as a law professor. In the midst of moving back to her hometown, where she joined the faculty at the University of Buffalo School of Law, Harrington continued working on a settlement of a class action lawsuit begun while she was at Liman. That case started in her last months at the Liman Center, when she was also contributing to its latest report on solitary confinement.

“It was an intense effort by everyone,” Harrington said as she prepared to start her first semester in Buffalo. “I’m proud to have helped to get that report out the door.”

In some ways, the packed schedule of Harrington’s last months at Liman is typical of her two years there. Immediately upon starting in 2018, she delved into research for an earlier installment in Liman’s series of reports on solitary confinement. The following year, she co-authored testimony submitted to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for its hearing on women in prison. Harrington joined Judith Resnik and students in preparing testimony, attending the hearing, and responding to inquiries from the Civil Rights Commission thereafter. In between these activities, she co-taught the Liman workshops, The Criminal Systems at a Crossroads, and Poverty and the Courts: Fines, Fees, Bail, and Collective Redress.

Now Harrington is leading her own clinic, the new Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic at the University of Buffalo School of Law. The clinic’s first project responds to New York State’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, a 2019 law that allows domestic violence survivors who have been convicted of crimes related to their abuser to petition the courts for resentencing. Clinic students will represent clients, conduct research, and develop litigation strategies concerning the new law.

“This will be a fantastic opportunity for students to learn more about criminal defense and criminal justice reform and to really plug into areas where there’s a real need and gap for representation in Western New York,” Harrington said. “Students will be able to learn a lot of different skills to really get comfortable with building client relationships and trust. They’ll also learn how to develop mitigation, to develop evidence, and to put their written and their oral advocacy skills to test.”

Harrington noted that the clinic will expand to take on other types of cases, including those of people who were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms when they were juveniles. She focused on such cases prior to Liman, when she was a Deputy Assistant Public Defender with the Connecticut Division of Public Defender Services. There she supervised the implementation of a newly established type of parole hearing for people sentenced when they were teens.

Harrington has also researched juvenile sentencing, examining whether parole board decisions meet the intent of recent laws meant to give people who received long sentences as juveniles another chance. Her predecessor at Liman, Kristen Bell, studies similar issues and the two have connected over their research. Harrington said she expects that Liman connections will remain valuable as she begins her new role.

“To have this network of people to rely on gives me a lot of comfort and it makes me feel like I have support and resources that I can turn to,” Harrington said. “It’s a lovely feeling in the midst of a nerve-racking, daunting time.”