Jeffrey Selbin directs the Policy Advocacy Clinic, which he founded in 2015 as an interdisciplinary clinic to train and supervise law and public policy students to take on systemic racial and economic injustice. The clinic currently represents impacted groups in California and nationally on campaigns to abolish racialized wealth extraction (fees and fines) in the criminal and juvenile legal systems.
From 2014 to 2017, Selbin served as co-faculty director of the Henderson Center for Social Justice, and from 2006 to 2015, he served as faculty director of the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC), Berkeley’s community-based clinic. Selbin founded EBCLC’s HIV/AIDS Law Project in 1990 as a Skadden Fellow, and served as EBCLC’s Executive Director from 2002 to 2007. During 2010-11, Selbin was a visiting clinical professor at Yale Law School. In Spring 2019, he was a visiting fellow at Yale and a visiting scholar at NYU.
Selbin is active in local and national clinical legal education, anti-poverty, and criminal justice reform efforts. He is a founding member and co-chair of the Advisory Board of the Fines and Fees Justice Center. He chaired the Poverty Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and co-chaired the Lawyering in the Public Interest (Bellow Scholar) Committee of the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education. He currently serves as an elected member of the Clinical Law Review Editorial Board, and served two terms as an elected member of the board of directors of the Clinical Legal Education Association.
Selbin co-authored the leading poverty law casebook Poverty Law, Policy, and Practice (2d ed. 2021). Other recent publications (some with co-authors) include: Blood from a Turnip: Money as Punishment in Idaho in the Idaho Law Review (2021), Juvenile Fee Abolition in California: Early Lessons and Challenges for the Debt Free Justice Movement in the North Carolina Law Review (2020), The Diversity Imperative Revisited: Racial and Gender Inclusion in Clinical Law Faculty in the Clinical Law Review (2019), Measuring Law School Clinics in the Tulane Law Review (2018); and Unmarked? Criminal Record Clearing and Employment Outcomes in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (2017).
Selected recent clinic reports include: Fee Abolition and the Promise of Debt-Free Justice for Young People and Their Families in California, (2019); Homeless Exclusion Districts: How California Business Improvement Districts Use Policy Advocacy and Policing Practices to Exclude Homeless People from Public Space (2018); and Making Families Pay: The Harmful, Unlawful and Costly Practice of Charging Juvenile Administrative Fees in California (2017).
In 2018, Selbin received the Society of American Law Teachers Great Teacher Award and the U.C. Berkeley Chancellor’s Award for Community Engaged Teaching. He has been recognized multiple times as a Northern California Super Lawyer; was named a Harvard Law School Wasserstein Fellow, honoring outstanding public interest lawyers (2004); and was selected as a Bellow Scholar by the AALS Clinical Section for his anti-poverty and access-to-justice efforts (2003).
Education
B.A., University of Michigan (1983)
C.E.P., L'Institut d'Etudes Politiques (1986)
J.D., Harvard University (1989)
Jeffrey Selbin is teaching the following courses in Spring 2025:
• 290C sec. 001 - Policy Advocacy Clinic Seminar for 1Ls
• 295.5K sec. 001 - Policy Advocacy Clinic for 1Ls
• 295.5X sec. 001 - Advanced Policy Advocacy Clinic
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Fall 2024 | 290A sec. 001 | Policy Advocacy Clinic Seminar | View Teaching Evaluation |
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Truly Transformative: Center for Youth Development through Law Marks 25 Years of Changing Lives
The program has inspired and prepared nearly 800 East Bay public high school students from first-generation and marginalized backgrounds for higher education, fulfilling careers, community engagement, and leadership.
Professors, community members weigh in on Supreme Court homelessness ruling
Professor Jeffrey Selbin weighs in on the Supreme Court ruling on City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson
More sweeps, less housing are the consequences of a disastrous SCOTUS decision
“The Supreme Court just ripped away the biggest incentive that cities had to build more shelters and supportive housing for the homeless,” write Berkeley Law Professor Jeffrey Selbin and Jamie Suki Chang, associate professor of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley.
Supreme Court has ‘greenlighted the criminalization of homelessness,’ Berkeley experts say
Professor Jeffrey Selbin and Laura Riley, director of the Clinical Program at Berkeley Law, comment on the Grants Pass decision.
Commentary: Whatever the Supreme Court decides, California can’t keep criminalizing homelessness
Professor Jeffrey Selbin writes a commentary piece about the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear a case that determines how and when cities can clear homeless camps.
With homelessness case, SCOTUS could make broader changes to ‘cruel and unusual’ standard
“While the Supreme Court could decide to upend more than half a decade of its own Eighth Amendment jurisprudence in deciding this case, it doesn’t need to touch earlier cases in order to strike down the lower-court holdings at issue here that extend constitutional protections to homeless people on the basis of their status,” Professor Jeffrey Selbin told the Chronicle.
Supreme Court will hear case about homeless encampments, with huge implications for California
Professor Jeffrey Selbin said the existing cases neither fully tie cities’ hands, as some politicians say, nor provide a broad right to sleep outside, as some advocates say. He defended the status quo in which cities sometimes must seek guidance from federal judges to know whether their local rules are constitutional under the Boise decision.
OpEd: San Francisco’s homeless sweeps are unlawful — and the city will pay for it
“Affordable housing, not handcuffs, is the only humane, effective and lawful solution to homelessness,” writes Jeffrey Selbin the Chancellor’s Clinical Professor of Law and co-director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law.
California Will Soon Have the Nation’s Most Expansive Record-Clearing Law
Jeff Selbin, the director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic at the U.C. Berkeley School of Law discusses California’s new law that will automatically seal most criminal records for those who complete their sentences.
Stephanie Campos-Bui ’14 Wins UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Award for Community-Engaged Teaching
Deputy director of Berkeley Law’s Policy Advocacy Clinic, Campos-Bui is honored for her impactful work on the effects of criminal legal system fees and fines.
Justice Education Project’s New Book Explains the Basics on U.S. Criminal Justice
Former Policy Advocacy Clinic teaching fellow Ahmed Lavalais discusses the clinic’s campaign to eliminate debt imposed on youth and families by the juvenile justice system
‘Terrific Teachers, Superb Scholars, and Wonderful Colleagues’: Six Professors Awarded Faculty Chairs
Professors Katerina Linos, Steven Davidoff Solomon, Abbye Atkinson, Elisabeth Semel, Laurel E. Fletcher, and Jeffrey Selbin are honored for their contributions to scholarship and legal education.
Clinic’s Winning Playbook for Abolishing Harmful Juvenile Fees Gains Momentum Nationwide
Berkeley Law’s Policy Advocacy Clinic leads the way in abolishing harmful juvenile fees nationwide, with five states eliminating fees this year alone.
Idaho Supreme Court issues ‘significant’ ruling for those who can’t afford court fees
Professor Jeffrey Selbin, director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic, says an unanimous Idaho Supreme Court decision on court fees sends a clear message that courts should not be in the business of making money off the poor
She Tried to Steal $15 Pants as a Teen. The Fines Devastated Her Family.
Professor Jeffrey Selbin, director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic, explains the damage juvenile fines and fees do to families and says families can be responsible for fees from the probation department, the state court system, and even “child support” if their child ends up in the custody of the Oregon Youth Authority
Oregon lawmakers discuss elimination of juvenile court fees
Data published by the Policy Advocacy Clinic showing the high cost of collecting juvenile fees is cited as Oregon considers a bill to end juvenile fines and fees
Change-Making at the Capitol: Governor Signs Seven Bills Driven by Berkeley Law Clinics and Centers
Governor Newsom signs a whopping seven bills that focus on protecting residents’ civil, financial, and environmental rights — all driven by Berkeley Law clinics and centers.
Trapped
Professor Jeffrey Selbin, director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic, discusses the impact juvenile fees have on families and communities
Op-Ed: Moratorium on Juvenile Court Fees and Fines Can Ease Family Burdens During COVID-19
Professor Jeffrey Selbin, Director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic, with Jessica Feierman, explains why now is the time to impose an immediate moratorium on all juvenile fees and fines
Inspiration 3.0: Student Trio Honored for Exceptional Clinical Advocacy
Extraordinary 3Ls Savannah Reid, Bill Nguyen, and Camila Gonzalez wowed their supervisors, peers, and project partners en route to their awards.