Jill Soffiyah Elijah serves as a clinical instructor with Harvard Law School's Criminal Justice Institute, having recently resigned from her position as the Director of the Defender Clinic at the City University of New York School of Law (CUNY). Born in Queens, New York, Ms. Elijah earned a B.A. from Cornell University and a J.D. from Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, Michigan. While at CUNY she also directed the Child Welfare Advocacy Program, which trained law students to work as creative advocates in New York City's child welfare system. Prior to her position at CUNY, she was a supervising attorney at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem (NDS), where she defended indigent members of the Harlem Community. Before joining NDS, Ms. Elijah was in private practice, specializing in criminal defense and family law. She also worked as a staff attorney for the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society. Over the past eighteen years, she has represented numerous political prisoners and social activists.

Her current research and scholarship focuses on criminal justice issues and the prison industrial complex. She has researched the U.S. criminal justice and prison systems for the past twenty years. Ms. Elijah has traveled to Cuba several times over the past fifteen years. She has conducted extensive research on the country's legal system with a focus on its approach to criminal justice issues.

Last updated April 16, 2002