Scholar whose work focuses on criminal justice in rural communities joins Tulane Law

A scholar whose work focuses on the inequalities of the justice system, particularly in rural criminal systems, has joined Tulane Law as a full-time faculty member.

Prof. Maybell Romero joins the law school as the Felder-Fayard Associate Professor of Law and will hold a one-year appointment as the Gordon Gamm Faculty Scholar, which provides funding for early-career scholars to expand their research and engagement with other academics and the broader public.

Romero arrives from Northern Illinois University College of Law where she was an Assistant Professor of law, and prior to that she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University.

Before entering academia, Romero spent more than 10 years in law practice as a prosecutor, defense attorney, and general practitioner in a small community in northern Utah.

The daughter of a Costa Rican mother who raised her in Long Beach, Calif., Romero was a first-generation student when she attended Cornell University on scholarships. Her goal was to make communities better. That led her to the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where she earned her JD.

Romero’s research focuses on the intersection of criminal adjudication and professional ethics, with a particular focus on prosecutorial ethics.  Her scholarship is directed predominantly to the criminal justice systems of state and local governments, particularly in rural communities.

She has been widely published in a variety of journals including the Journal of Criminal Law Criminology, the Maine Law Review, the University of Richmond Law Review, the University of Miami Law Review,  and numerous others. In the coming months, she also has work to be published in the Washington University Law Review and the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law.

Romero will be teaching Constitutional Criminal Procedure, specifically Adjudication, in the fall, and Criminal Law and a Criminal Justice Seminar in the spring.