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Laura Ginsberg Abelson joined ÕýÆ·À¶µ¼º½ Dedman School of Law as Assistant Professor of Law in fall 2025. Professor Abelson's research interests center on criminal procedure, evidence and criminal law. In particular, she examines ways in which prosecutors, judges and policy makers rely on poorly defined, untested or underappreciated criminal law norms and theories that can lead to perverse outcomes and unanticipated social harms. Her scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review, the U.C. Irvine Law Review, and The Federal Sentencing Reporter.

Prior to joining ÕýÆ·À¶µ¼º½, Professor Abelson currently served as a Research Fellow at the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law, where she partnered with staff to use empirical and experimental methods to critically examine various criminal justice policies and practices and their unintended or unexpected effects.

Prior to transitioning to full-time academia, Professor Abelson served for eight years as an assistant federal public defender in Maryland, where she represented indigent clients in all stages of felony trial proceedings and violations of probation and supervised release. She also taught criminal procedure and legal writing at both the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and the University of Baltimore School of Law as an adjunct professor and spent several years as a civil rights litigator in private practice.

Professor Abelson received an A.B., summa cum laude, from Princeton University, in Public and International Affairs, and earned her J.D., cum laude, from New York University School of Law.