Craig B. Futterman is a Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School and a Resident Dean in the College. He founded and has served as the Director of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic since 2000. He was elected to a Simon Visiting Professorship in the School of Law at the University of Manchester, U.K., in 2018/2019. Before his appointment to the Law Faculty, Professor Futterman was a Lecturer in Law and Director of Public Interest Programs at Stanford Law School. He previously joined Futterman & Howard, Chtd., a boutique law firm concentrating in complex federal litigation. There, Prof. Futterman specialized in civil rights and constitutional matters, with a special focus on racial discrimination, education, and police brutality. Before that, he served as a trial attorney in the Juvenile Division of the Cook County Public Defender’s Office.
Futterman received his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1991 and graduated with the highest distinction from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Economics.
Steve started his legal career in criminal law as a prosecutor twenty-two years ago in Hampden County, MA. In 2003, he was hired to lead government corruption investigations in Maryland’s State Prosecutor’s Office. After leaving this position, he worked two years as a criminal defense lawyer. He was then hired as a lead felony prosecutor in the Cecil County (Maryland) State’s Attorney’s Office, where he was later named as the Acting State’s Attorney. In 2018, he ventured to the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office to join the Police Integrity Unit – a unit he now proudly runs as Division Chief.
Alex S. Vitale is a Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College and a Visiting Professor at London Southbank University. He has spent the last 30 years writing about policing and consults both police departments and human rights organizations internationally. Prof. Vitale is the author of City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics and The End of Policing. His academic writings on policing have appeared in Policing and Society, Police Practice and Research, Mobilization, and Contemporary Sociology. He is also a frequent essayist, whose writings have been published in The NY Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Vice News, Fortune, and USA Today. He has also appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR, PBS, Democracy Now, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.