DeanRose DiMartino and Karen Sue Smith Professor of Law
J.D. Harvard Law School A.B. Harvard College
Jelani Jefferson Exum is the 10th Dean of St. John’s University School of Law, where she holds an endowed chair as the Rose DiMartino and Karen Sue Smith Professor of Law.
Dean Jefferson Exum started at St. John’s Law after serving as the Dean and Philip J. McElroy Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. Before that, she was a professor at the University of Toledo College of Law and at the University of Kansas School of Law, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and a fellow at Tulane Law School. She served as Toledo Law’s inaugural Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion and Detroit Mercy Law students honored her as Professor of the Year.
A widely recognized sentencing scholar, Dean Jefferson Exum has published her work on sentencing, comparative criminal law and procedure, policing, and the impact of race on criminal justice in a range of publications. She serves on the New York State Justice Task Force, on the editorial board of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, and as Secretary of the Neighborhood Defender Service, Inc. Board of Advisors. She is also a member of the Greater New York Chapter of the Links, Inc. and the Nassau County Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, Inc.
Dean Jefferson Exum earned her undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Harvard College, received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and held federal clerkships with Hon. Eldon E. Fallon, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, and Hon. James L. Dennis, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.