James E. Coleman Jr.
Professor of the Practice of Law
A.B. 1970, Harvard University; J.D. 1974, Columbia University. A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Professor Coleman's experience includes a judicial clerkship for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, a year in private practice in New York, and fifteen years in private practice in Washington, D.C., the last twelve as a partner in a large law firm. In private practice, he specialized in federal court and administrative litigation; he also represented criminal defendants in capital collateral proceedings. He has had a range of government experience. In 1976, he joined the Legal Services Corporation, where he served for two years as an assistant general counsel. In 1978, he conducted an investigation of two members of Congress as chief counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. In 1980, he served as a deputy general counsel for the U.S. Department of Education. On sabbatical from his law firm, he was a visitor at Duke Law School for the fall semester of 1989, where he taught a seminar on capital punishment. He joined the faculty full-time in 1991 and taught criminal law, research and writing, and a seminar on capital punishment. He returned to private practice in 1993, but continued to teach a seminar on capital punishment as a senior visiting lecturer. He rejoined the faculty full-time in 1996. He teaches criminal law, legal ethics, negotiation and mediation, capital punishment, and wrongful convictions. He is an active member of the American Bar Association. He has been chair of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities (1999-2000) and of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project (2001 - 2006)
Professor Coleman served as the Law School's Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2002-2005.