Roger A. Fairfax, Jr.

Roger A. Fairfax, Jr. is the Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor, and Founding Director of the Criminal Law & Policy Initiative at GW Law. He teaches courses in criminal law and procedure, ethics, and seminars on the grand jury, white-collar criminal investigations, and criminal justice policy and reform.  His scholarship has been published in numerous books and leading journals.

Before academia, Professor Fairfax served as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice, and in private practice at O'Melveny & Myers LLP, where his practice included white-collar criminal and regulatory defense, as well as pro bono indigent criminal defense, and civil
rights litigation. He is admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court. Fairfax has testified before Congress, spoken at the White House, and advised government officials and candidates on criminal justice policy. He worked on criminal justice reform as a Senior Legislative Fellow with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, and as a Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

Professor Fairfax is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and the editorial board of the ABA's Criminal Justice magazine. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, an elected member of the American Law Institute, and a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, Advisory Committee for the Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Fairfax graduated from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and then clerked for Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and for Judge Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.