Sharon Beckman teaches in the Criminal Justice Clinic and supervises the Boston College Defenders, 3rd year law students who represent indigent clients charged with crimes in the Dorchester District Court. A Boston College Law School faculty member since 1996, she has also taught Criminal Law and Constitutional Law and seminars on Punishment, White Collar Crime, and the Supreme Court. Professor Beckman has won numerous teaching awards, including the University Distinguished Teaching Award (2005), the Ruth-Arlene Howe/BLSA Faculty Member of the Year Award (2004), and the Emil Slizewski Outstanding Teaching Award (2002). She has also been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Harvard University.

Professor Beckman is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Law Review. After law school she clerked for the Hon. Frank Coffin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and then for Hon. Sandra Day O’Connor of the Supreme Court of the United States. Prior to joining the Boston College Law faculty, Professor Beckman practiced law in Boston with Silverlate, Gertner, Fine & Good (later Silverglate & Good) and in Chicago with Jenner & Block. Her practice focussed on criminal defense and civil rights/civil liberties litigation.

Professor Beckman was born and raised in Illinois. She swam the English Channel in 1982 and the following year was ranked 1st in the United States and 3rd in the world among femal marathon swimmers. She is married and the mother of two daughters.

EDUCATION

B.A., cum laude Harvard College; J.D. magna cum laude University of Michigan Law School.

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Work in Progress: Criminal Profiling and Constitutional Judgment

Other: Professor Beckman is a Faculty Advisor in the Boston College GYRO /Black History Month Colloquium and Scholarship Program. Board Member, Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services. Co-counsel (with Harvey Silverglate, Andrew Good, and Barry Scheck) on appeal in Commonwealth v. Louise Woodward. Faculty member, Milton Academy Saturday Course (All New Trial Court).

APPOINTMENTS

Professor Beckman was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Harvard Law School in 1998.

COURSES

Fall '07: Criminal Justice Clinic (Defense); Criminal Justice Clinic
Spring '08: Advanced Criminal Justice: Defense Class; Advanced Criminal Justice: Defense Clinic; Criminal Law

PUBLICATIONS

• "Can Criminal Punishment Survive Christian Scrutiny? A Comment on Jeffrie Murphy's
  'Christianity and Criminal Punishment.'" Punishment & Society 6 (Jan. 2004): 87-98.
• "What Bush's Litigation Teaches Us About Compassionate Conservatism." Jurist: Legal News and Research (November 17, 2000) Available online at: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/electionbeckman.htm
  
• "Court Finds Needle Possession Justified to Limit Spread of AIDS" The Drug
  Policy Letter 2 (January-February 1990): 1.
  
• Review of Selective Nontreatment of Handicapped Newborns, by Weir.
  Michigan Law Review 83 (1985): 894 .