Brandon Hasbrouck Associate Professor of Law and Director, Frances Lewis Law Center

Email: bhasbrouck@wlu.edu

Twitter: @b_hasbrouck

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Area of Expertise

Abolition, Movement Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, Appellate Advocacy

Education

JD, Washington and Lee University

BA, Dominican College

About

Professor Brandon Hasbrouck is an award-winning and acclaimed scholar and teacher that writes in the areas of criminal law and procedure, constitutional law and theory, movement law, and abolition. Professor Hasbrouck's research explores the legal and constitutional principles available to Congress and the courts to redress the ways law fails Black and other marginalized people and the structural possibilities for radical change in American society. His scholarship and advocacy work centers movements and works in solidarity with those movements to advance transformative understandings of our Constitution. Professor Hasbrouck's scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in print with leading scholarly journals, including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, New York University Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, The Georgetown Law Journal, the UCLA Law Review (twice), the Washington University Law Review, the Boston University Law Review, and the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.  Professor Hasbrouck has also published shorter and online essays in top journals, including, among others The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

Professor Hasbrouck's scholarship and advocacy work has been the subject of much attention in national media. Professor Hasbrouck has published opinion essays in The Washington Post, The Nation, Slate, The Boston Globe, The Richmond Times, Balls and Strikes, and his work has been cited and/or quoted in federal court opinions, Supreme Court briefs, and leading scholarly and popular publications.  Professor Hasbrouck has authored or coauthored amicus briefs in federal court on some of the most important issues at the intersection of constitutional law and civil rights and habeas law.  Professor Hasbrouck is frequently consulted on litigation strategies involving civil rights and racial justice. Professor Hasbrouck is the two-time recipient of both the Ethan Allen Faculty Fellowship for scholarly excellence (2020-21 and 2022-23) and the John W. Elrod Law Alumni Fellowship for teaching excellence (2020-21 and 2021-22). He is the first professor in the law school's history to have received both awards in the same year. In addition, Professor Hasbrouck was awarded the Lewis Prize for Excellence in Legal Scholarship in 2020 and 2021. 

In 2022, the student body voted Professor Hasbrouck Professor of the Year-he is the first Black professor in W&L Law's history to receive the Student Bar Association's Professor of the Year. 

Before joining the academy, Professor Hasbrouck worked at two prestigious law firms, McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York, where he drafted briefs and motions in federal and state appellate and trial courts regarding a wide range of issues including constitutional law and criminal law. Professor Hasbrouck clerked for two legendary Black federal judges-Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. 

Professor Hasbrouck received his J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Washington and Lee University School of Law, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Washington and Lee Law Review, was the recipient of the Frederic L. Kirgis, Jr. International Law Award for Excellence in International Law, graduated Order of Coif, was a member of the Black Law Students Association, and was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa. He received his B.A. degree, magna cum laude, from Dominican College.

Professor Hasbrouck received an honorary degree of Doctor of Law from Dominican College. He is admitted to the bar of New York State, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.