Sonja Starr

Sonja Starr joined the University of Chicago law faculty after eleven years teaching at the University of Michigan, where she was the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law. She previously taught at the University of Maryland and Harvard Law School, graduated from Yale Law, and clerked for Judges Merrick Garland of the DC Circuit and Mohamed Shahabuddeen of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia. Professor Starr's teaching and research focus on criminal law and criminal justice. Her research blends quantitative empirical work with more traditional legal scholarship. Topics include the use of predictive algorithms in sentencing and bail, racial and other disparities in prosecution and sentencing, and policies designed to expand employment opportunities for people with criminal records. Professor Starr’s work has appeared in, for example, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the Yale Law Journal, and the Stanford and Harvard Law Reviews. She is the 2020-21 Law and Economics Section Chair of the American Association of Law Schools, a past co-president of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, and a board member of the American Law and Economics Association.