Ji Seon Song

University of California, Irvine School of Law

Ji Seon Song is on the law faculty at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. Professor Song teaches and writes in areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, and policing. Before entering academia, Prof. Song represented youth and adults as a Deputy Public Defender and Juvenile Special Projects Attorney at the Contra Costa County Office of the Public Defender. During her time at the Public Defender’s Office, Prof. Song broadened the juvenile unit’s practice to include robust post-disposition and education advocacy, worked on early efforts to start a county-wide racial justice initiative, and helped develop and launch a multistakeholder youth reentry initiative. Prof. Song was also a founding member of the Bay Area Public Defenders for Racial Justice and led the organization’s training committee.

Before the Public Defender’s Office, Prof. Song was a senior policy advocate at The Gault Center (formerly National Juvenile Defender Center) advocate where she worked on national and state initiatives to improve indigent defense, served as amicus counsel on youth justice issues, provided technical assistance to trainings to juvenile legal system stakeholders. Before The Gault Center, Prof. Song was a Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s Juvenile Justice Clinic where she represented youth in Washington D.C.’s juvenile delinquency courts and supervised clinic students.

Prof. Song has been a part of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center since 2010. She has contributed to PJDC’s amicus work in significant California Supreme Court cases and co-led the first statewide AB109 training with Rourke Stacy. In 2020, as President of the PJDC Board, Prof. Song oversaw the expansion of the PJDC Board and staff. Prof. Song continues to work on youth and racial justice issues in addition to her research on the intersection of policing and healthcare. Prof. Song  is a co-founder of the Health Equity and Access for Law Enforcement Involved Patients, a national network of academics and practitioners from law, medicine, and public health. She previously led the Working Group on Policing and Patient Rights with Georgetown University Law Center’s Health Justice Alliance. She is a frequent speaker and consultant on issues relating to racial justice, youth justice, and law enforcement and healthcare.

Prof. Song earned a B.A.in East Asian Languages and Cultures with a minor in Music from Columbia College, Columbia University, a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center. After law school, Prof. Song clerked for the late Honorable Deborah A. Batts of the Southern District of New York. Prior to her appointment at UC Irvine School of Law, Prof. Song was a Thomas C. Grey Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School.