Prof. Kimberly Ferzan
“ We actually have these incredibly broad laws on the books that are allowing citizens not just to stand their ground when they’re defending themselves but to actually go on the offense and arrest and use force in the name of the state. ”
Kimberly Kessler Ferzan is the Earle Hepburn Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at University of Pennsylvania Law School. She is also the Co-Director of its Institute of Law & Philosophy. Ferzan teaches criminal law, evidence, advanced criminal law, and advanced law and philosophy seminars. Ferzan’s work focuses on criminal law theory. She is the co-editor in chief of Law and Philosophy, and is also on the editorial boards of the Stanford Encylopedia for Philosophy (Philosophy of Law), Legal Theory, Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, and Criminal Law and Philosophy. She is the author of numerous articles, the co-editor of three books, and the co-author of Crime and Culpability: A Theory of Criminal Law (Cambridge University Press), with Larry Alexander and Stephen Morse, and Rethinking Crime and Culpability (Cambridge University Press), with Larry Alexander. Prior to joining the UPenn faculty in 2020, she was the Harrison Robertson Professor of Law and the Joel B. Piassick Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Prior to joining the Virginia faculty in 2014, Ferzan was on the Rutgers University faculty for 14 years. Before teaching, Ferzan clerked for Judge Marvin Katz in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and then worked as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Public Integrity Section, investigating and prosecuting criminal offenses committed by federal, state and local officials. She also served as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia.
